BORN TO SWEET DELIGHT
by LenSilvan
Summary: Xander Harris is turned into a Hellsing Vampire and is sent back in time. To make things a bit more confusing, Xander is the one who turned his sire to a vampire, which makes him his own grand-sire.
1. Chapter 1

**BORN TO SWEET DELIGHT  
**

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**Author's note: **I tried to continue THE ESSENCE OF LIVING THINGS without success, so I decided to write it again.

This part of the story will happen in the past (AD 1331 – 1997).

The second part (THE RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT) will start from BtVS Season 3, episode 13 (The Zeppo).

**Summary:** Xander Harris is turned into Hellsing Vampire by Helena from the Hellsing Anime and is sent back in time. To make things a bit more confusing, Xander is Helena's sire, which makes him his own grand-sire.

Hellhound, The mist, Shadows, Flock of bats, Girlycard... to me it seems that Alucard is a shapeshifter without any restrictions. Xander will have same abilities than Alucard. But, learning those abilities will take time. At the start, he is pretty much just another (true) vampire.

**DISCLAIMER:** Series trademarks, all publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is not in any way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, and makes no money from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

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_"Every Night and every Morn  
Some to Misery are born.  
Every Morn and every Night  
Some are born to Sweet Delight,  
Some are born to Endless Night."_

**_― William Blake, Songs of Experience_**

_"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."  
_

_**— Friedrich Nietzsche**_

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**Prologue**

**Los Angeles, California, 1999**

"Oh, God! Oh, God! Please! Let me out! He's going to kill me! Please! Please! Let me out!" The terrified young woman screamed banging the glass wall separating her from the people watching. Then the vampire grabbed her, and in a flash, his fangs tore into her throat. A blissful expression appeared on the vampire's eyes as he devoured the woman's blood and soul.

As Adam Dellera, the nearly seven-hundred-year-old vampire looked at the newborn true vampire killing the woman a sense of depression ate at him—the kind of depression that was hard to identify. "It is fascinating, even without any human memories our predatory instincts still work," he said.

"And it looks like devouring the soul and memories with the blood is ingrained on us," Helena, Adam's oldest vampire daughter noted.

Adam nodded. "So, it seems. Helena, you do know that you now must erase the woman's memories from his mind? Alexander Harris cannot have any memories about this time when he wakes up."

"Yes, Adam, I know that we cannot let him change the history any more than he will just by being there. I will erase his memory again, but you know as well as I that he needed to feed before he becomes history," Helena said, placing her tiny palm against the cold glass. "My new son needs his mother," she continued and phased through the five-inch bulletproof glass into the room.

When feral newborn vampire, apparently recognizing his Sire, kneeled before her, Helena caressed his bloody cheek. "Oh, my beautiful boy, I'm sorry that I cannot be there to guide you during the first century of your new life," she said and then she frowned when Xander whimpered burying his face into his hands. "Oh, dear. I know, I know, all those terrible female memories that do not fit your body are confusing, aren't they? Dear boy, will you let me help you with those memories?"

As Xander Harris hissed like a snake, spittle glistened on his lower lip as his upper lip curled back into a sneer revealing his fangs. "You! Help! Me?" He screamed with a good imitation of the terrified voice of the woman he had just killed.

Helena smiled at him, gently cupping his face. "Yes, my precious boy, I can help you with those awful and confusing memories." The newborn true vampire's eyes rolled the back of his head, and he slumped on the floor. "His mind is a tabula rasa now, and he will be unconscious for a while," Helena said.

"Good," Adam said and turned to look at the Wolfram and Hart lawyer standing beside him. "Mr. Manners is everything ready for the spell?"

"Yes, Lord Dellera, everything is ready, we only need Mr. Harris to stay still," Manners said.

"My boy will sleep for half an hour or so. You can start," Helena said.

"Good," Adam said. "Helena, come out with the girl. We are going to start."

Helena lifted the woman on her lap and phased through the wall. She gently placed the body of the woman on a chair and then looked at Adam. "She's going to be my new granddaughter."

Adam sighed deeply as he turned to Holland Manners. "Did you really think you can steal one of mine from me?"

"We hoped that you would not notice that the girl was a virgin," Manners calmly said. "But she is, as you said, one of yours and we won't try to stop you if you take her with you."

Adam shook his head, knowing that the only way for Wolfram and Hart to back off that fast was that they had some backup plan. Most likely, the woman had a contract with them, a contract that bound her beyond death. He telepathically told as much to Helena who answered that she already had figured it out.

"We are taking her with us," Helena smiled innocently at Holland Manners. "And, if you have any kind of contract with her, I suggest you release her from it right now. Because, if you ever try to control my granddaughter the whole Dellera True Vampire coven will come after Wolf, Ram, and Hart. And, you know us; we can destroy you AND the Circle of the Black Thorn if we want to."

Manner's eyes widened. "You know about Black Thorn?"

"Yes, just like Wolfram and Hart, I have spies everywhere, and I'm a very well informed woman," Helena said, "she is ours now, release her from all contracts you have with her, is that clear?"

"Yes, Lady Helena, I will see that she'll be free from us."

"Good," Helena said.

"Helena, we don't have time for this. We'll destroy Wolfram and Hart if needed, but now we have Xander Harris to worry about," Adam said. "Mr. Manners, you should hurry. I can sense Harris's mind starting to wake up."

"Yes, of course," Manners said. "Lady Helena, if you would be kind enough to give the coven leader the time and GPS coordinates."

Helena handed a note to a young warlock who raised his brow as he read it. "This is an exact date. Bending time is hard, and we cannot be that accurate, the best we can do is an approximate decade," the warlock said.

"If that's too accurate then… The Carpathian Mountains, 1350 A.D. give or take half a century," Adam said.

The warlock nodded solemnly. "That we can do."

"How long will it take?" Adam asked.

"Not long," The warlock said. "However, if you want Mr. Harris to stay in that time and not come back when the spell ends, I must carve some runes into his body."

"Do it. Anything you do to his body cannot harm him anymore," Adam said.

The warlock went into the glass room and using a scalpel carved runes into Xander Harris' chest. Then the warlock, using Xander's blood, drew a mystical circle around him. When the circle was finished, he came out and closed the door behind him.

Then the thirty-six magic users started to chant. After a few minutes, the room was filled with white light, and with a soft pop, the air in the room filled the space where the boy had been a few seconds earlier. All the witches and warlocks in the room fell unconscious on the floor.

"That was anticlimactic," Adam said.

"Real magic often is," Holland Manners said, turning to Gavin. "Are you sure that the message to Lady Helena was delivered and Mr. Harris was delivered to exact coordinates and approximate time Lord Dellera gave you?"

"Yes, Sir. The message to Lady Helena was delivered," Gavin replied looking at the computer screen. "and we have records of the first sightings of The Beast from 1384 near Târgoviște, Romania where one of our operatives reported that a naked vampire followed by a pack of wolves killed a bear," Gavin gave Adam a solemn nod. "Lord Dellera, I am sure that you have arrived Carpathian Mountains 1350 AD give or take half a century."

"I have arrived?" Adam asked, raising his gray eyebrow. "You knew all along that I'm Xander Harris?" he asked.

"Lord Dellera, do you think that we are idiots? When it became clear that Lady Helena had turned Mr. Harris, and also wanted us to deliver a message a month back in time to herself, it did not take us for a long to realize why you wanted to send Alexander Harris to the 14th century. You may look a lot different than Mr. Harris, but, in Moldavia, 1526, when you opened your account in Wolfram and Hart, you didn't look like the older man you are right now. We take pictures of all our clients. Of course, back then it was an artist who drew the picture," Holland Manners said, pointing at the computer screen.

Adam looked at the painting of him on the screen, and then he sighed and shifted back to his natural form as a teen boy. "Oh, well, it doesn't matter anymore, Xander is where he belongs, and I'm free from the time loop that I've been living the past 668 years," Adam said taking the body of the woman his younger self had just killed into his lap. He could sense how the true vampire magic already was changing her body.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Carpathian Mountains, 1331-1484 **

His nose was overwhelmed with smells, ears filled with sounds; a snapping bough, a scurrying squirrel and distant howls of wolves. Opening the eyes, he sat up; he was naked and in a snowy, freezing cold forest. He didn't know what had happened, his mind was clouded. He sat up, trying to remember who he was. Then, suddenly there was just the...

_Hunger._

He felt as though he had not eaten anything for an uncountably long time. His stomach was cramping, the hunger was the only thing in his thoughts. And then a single sound broke its way through the darkness; the sound of eating squirrel. He jumped up on the tree and caught the squirrel and sunk the teeth into it and drank hungrily, gulping its blood into his mouth.

But it wasn't enough; it only made the hunger feel worse, he caught the smells of various small animals. Then he again heard the distant howl, and a feral grin took up his face as he started to run. The hunt was on.

After a short while, he entered the wolf pack's territory and in no time had caught the first wolf, but, the wolf surprised him by biting his hand. He snarled and grabbed the wolf by the neck, and his punishing jaws clenched around her throat.

The warm blood flowed into his mouth, he saw her whole life, from a cub to this moment, and then she was gone. He threw the dead body of a wolf away, he had drained her dry, but the hunger still burned him. He hunted down the next wolf and the next and the next, and it didn't matter how many wolves he ate, it only slightly alleviated the hunger.

When the sun was getting up. He stood there, naked, knee-deep in the snow, the wolf blood dripping over shoulders from the hair. He looked blankly at the horizon until the sky turned blood red, which slowly was replaced by pink. When the first burning rays of the sun hit his eyes, he growled in annoyance; the brightness hurt his eyes.

He dug a deep hole into the ground and buried himself under dirt and snow, feeling comfortable there he fell into a dreamless sleep.

When he woke up, he dug out from the makeshift grave and looked around, the sky was blood red, the sun was setting, and the sunlight made his eyes itch. He sat down, full of dazed wonders, until the hunger again burnt his soul; a hasty expression of pain and anger escaped his lips.

A long space of time came and went as he was sitting there, wondering what had happened to him. Then the hunger became too much to resist, he had to hunt before he'd go insane and he started to run, sniffing the air as he ran. Soon the scent of blood entered his nostrils, and he followed the smell of blood lingering in the air.

He found a bear surrounded by snarling monster wolves with glowing red eyes. He felt as if the wolves had been part of him. He growled at them, and they backed away from the battered bear. Ignoring bears wildly swinging claws, he leaped on him and ripped his throat open and drank. After he had drained the bear, he left the body for wolves to devour and sat down to watch the wolves, hungrily ate the body of the bear blood.

After they had eaten the monster wolves gathered around him, they were snarling and growling, but they weren't attacking, they were looking at him with expectant eyes. He nodded and got up. Again, the hunt was on. They hunted through the night and caught another bear, a few rabbits, and other small creatures. When the sunrise was coming, he watched it until the sun was up and then again dug a hole into the freezing cold ground, laid there pulling the dirt and snow to his blanket and soon he fell asleep.

Next dusk, when he woke up, the wolves were gone, but he sensed other creatures that were part of him, he sent a mental order for them to come and sat down to wait. Before long two monster bears, a herd of rabbits with sharp fangs and glowing eyes, small rodents with fangs, all kinds of monster creatures gathered around him.

And, again, the hunt was on.

And so, the time passed on; he slept the bright light of the day away and hunted with the different monsters every night. The coldness of the winter turned to the warmth of the spring and summer only to be pushed away when the winter again came, and then the next summer pushed the coldness away. Summers and winters came and went, and for countless summers, he was happy living his life that way.

But, as time went by, he started to wonder what had happened to him, and he started to ask questions. Where had he come from? Was he the only one of his kind in the world? How long had he lived like this? He felt dazed and muddled every time he tried to remember what had happened to him, and only the great silence answered. He liked the life in the forest but wanted to know who and what he was. Slowly, but surely, he started to understand that there was no chance that his curiosity would be satisfied if he stayed in the woods.

That was why, one night, he started to walk a straight line, thinking that if he'd walk long enough eventually, he'd meet someone else like him. He had begun to think that he could not be alone in this world, that there had to be more beings like him. For a long time, he had walked a straight line when he suddenly smelled foul smells; bitter, angry, and ugly smells. On the next night, he got a fresh scent trail of an animal that smelled so delicious that it made him drool.

Their smell was mixed with a dead deer, he could smell its blood, and he wrinkled his nose; he didn't much like the blood of herbivores, their blood tasted stale. The blood of carnivores tasted a lot better. As he followed the delicious scent trail the monsters, two wolves and five wolf-cubs, seven otters, and a badger followed him. They were his hunting partners for the night.

Soon he smelled that three more warm blood animals joined the two original ones; they were carrying a dead elk. After a short while, he saw them; five beings that looked just like him; hairless and walking with two feet. They were gathered around a fire beside a river. For a while, he watched them, and then he walked to them. When he stepped into the light of the fire, they froze and looked at him. Then they laughed, but their elder shut them up and came to him, offering a blanket. He said something, but he didn't understand him.

The elder shrugged and said something, and then he placed a blanket around his shoulders. The elder frowned when his hands touched his skin, and he looked at his friends and said something to them. The elder then led him close to the fire, and the men started to talk. They spoke rapidly, and he didn't understand them. Then one of the monster-wolf-cubs that had followed him for a long time came, and as they saw it, they grabbed their bows and shot it. The wolf attacked the closest man, and as it bit the man, a delicious smell filled his nostrils. He caught the elder and pulled him into his embrace. The Elder's eyes widened with terror, and he screamed as he sunk the fangs into his neck.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared him for what happened next. The Elder's blood tasted life and power, and it poured into him. The power and his life, from the moment he'd become aware of himself to the moment he realized that he was dying.

Then he heard a deafening bang and felt a slight pain in his left shoulder blade, it didn't really hurt, but it made him drop the old man's body to the ground and spun around. A small blond cub was pointing him with a stick that flashed with a loud boom, and then he felt something hitting in his chest, causing mild pain. He grabbed the cub and sunk the fangs into her neck, and again, a life flowed into him. The cub's blood was bitter and spicy and sweet. Her life, on the other hand... she'd had a hard life. Her father, the man who should have protected her, had started to beat her when she had been only a small child, he had made his daughter's life a living hell. He dropped the dead girl and went to the girl's father, he didn't know why, but he was enraged and hated the father of the girl he'd just killed.

The man should have protected his daughter, not hurt her. The man deserved to die, he grabbed him by the shoulder, his bones shattered under his fingers, and the man screamed. He smiled as he ripped his arm off and drank from the fountain. When he was dead, he dropped his body to the ground and drained the next man. Before long, he had killed all of them, and his mind was dizzy from all of the memories he had devoured. He sat down, watching how the monsters were eating the bodies. Suddenly, when they were about to start to eat the girl's body, he got angry; the girl was his! He attacked his monsters, ripping off their limbs and heads.

When all the monster-animals were dead, he sat down and looked at his hands. "Humans," He said speaking the language he'd learned from the memories of the men and girl. Those memories confused him, but he was learning a lot about himself and them. "They were men, it means their gender and species, I am a man," he frowned. "No, I used to be one of them. But I am not a human anymore, I'm a vampire. Yes, that sounds right; I'm a vampire."

The images of the monster men digging their way out of the grave and attacking people filled his mind, that was how his prey had seen his kind; blood-sucking monsters. He shrugged, it described him well, all his life he had been hunting animals to drink their blood.

Then he felt a pull inside of his mind, and he turned to look at the body of the girl. It twitched, once, twice, thrice, and then it began to shake, and awful smells filled the air. The next thing he knew the girl sat up and turned to look at him and her eyes widened. "Monster!" she cried out, and with incredible speed, she climbed up on the tree.

He looked up at her. "I will not hurt you like your father did, I hate men like him," he smiled. "And I feel the urge to protect you."

"You are a vampire," the girl said.

"That is what their memories tell me," he replied, looking at her fangs sparkling in the sun. "You have fangs."

Hanging on a tree branch with one hand, the girl opened her mouth, and when her finger touched her fang, she flinched and dropped down to the ground. She looked at the bleeding finger and then sucked the blood. "I am a vampire," she looked at him. "You turned me into a vampire."

He nodded. "So, it seems… tell me more about what we are? All these memories in my mind are… confusing and… incomprehensible."

The girl looked at him. "You don't know what you are?" she asked with a cocked eyebrow.

He nodded. "I now know that I am a vampire, but I do not know who I am."

The girl frowned looking him for a long moment. "You don't remember who you are?"

"No."

"You cannot teach me how to be a vampire?"

"I can teach you how to hunt," he replied.

The girl smiled. "Yes, I want to learn that..."

"Good, because that is all I know how to do."

"What's your name? I'm Helena."

"I don't know my name or if I even have one."

The girl sighed. "Oh, right, if you cannot remember who you are, you don't know your name," she glanced at the bodies of the men twitching around them. "Are they going to wake up as vampires too?"

He looked at her, sensing the fear in her when she looked at her father's body. "They always wake up, most are mindless, some are like me. But I have learned that, if I want to kill my monsters, I must rip off their heads."

"Can you…." Helena looked at her father's body, twitching. "Pull off his head?"

He smiled and went to her father, grabbed his head, and pulled it off of his shoulders. He brought the head to the girl as a gift but frowned when she backed away. He shrugged and tossed the head away. "He cannot hurt you, none of them can," he said, and one by one ripped off the heads of the waking men. "They are dead now."

"Thank you," Helena said and frowned. "What should I call you?"

"I don't know."

Helena was silent for a long moment. "The first man in the bible is called Adam, do you want to be Adam?" she, at last, asked.

He nodded. "Adam sounds a good name, Helena," he said. "You should wash, you smell… awful."

Helena looked down at her wand, wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I smell poo and pee..."

"Yes, that is what all the monsters smell when they wake up."

Helena looked at him for a long moment. "You are not going to… do bad things to me if I undress?"

Adam growled. "No one will hurt you ever again, you're mine to protect, and I will kill anyone trying to hurt you."

Helena smiled broadly. "Thank you, Adam," then she went into one of the tents, and when she came out, she had a pile of clothes with her. Helena placed them on the ground. Then she undressed and went to the river to wash. "the water is cold, but I don't feel cold," she stated as she was washing.

Adam frowned and searched the memories of the men he had killed buzzing inside of his mind, and then he nodded. "No, I have never felt cold or hot," he looked at her walking out of the river. "Can you teach me how to be a man?"

Helena looked at him as she was dressing up. "You need to clean yourself and then dress up."

Adam washed in the river and when he got out of the cold-water Helena was waiting for him. The next fifteen minutes, she helped him put on the clothes of the men he had just killed. "Now you look like a man," she said.

Adam nodded and again examined the memories of the men. "The village is close by, isn't it?"

"Yes, the village is down at the valley," Helena replied.

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes, yes, I am."

Adam nodded. "I'm not hungry, but I believe you need a lot of blood to finalize your transformation. Let's go to the village, human blood tastes better than anything I have tasted."

Helena took his hand. "I'll show you how to behave in there."

As Adam followed the girl, he sensed her emotions flickering from fear to excitement to bliss. He shook his head, wondering how he could feel her emotions and how she could have so many overlapping emotions happening at the same time. When they got to the village, it was full of life, but it all was going on inside of the houses. The streets were almost empty.

The village itself was laid out around a central building with a huge bell at the tower. The small houses that ringed the church were wood and plaster buildings looking like something which would fall over if a hard wind would blow over them. When a couple walked toward them, the man smiled at Helena. "Helena," He said, looking at Adam. "Is he your dad's friend?"

Without answering, Helena jumped on the man's chest, wrapping her tiny legs around his torso and her fangs sunk into the man's throat. Adam bit into the jugular of the woman, and as the delicious human blood flowed into his mouth, he kept his eyes on Helena; he was proud of his girl.

But soon after they had finished with the couple, the doors of the buildings opened, and people armed with axes, swords, and bows came out. An arrow flew toward Helena, but Adam picked the arrow from the air before it had hit Helena and tossed it back and it sunk deep into the chest of the man who had shot Helena, who jumped on the dying man, sinking her fangs into the man's neck.

Again, Adam felt proud when he watched Helena, the smell of blood was intoxicating, but he resisted the urge to kill. Then something hit Adam on the head, and when he turned to look at the man, he saw only terror in his eyes. Adam grabbed the man by the shoulder and then drank from him.

As he was drinking the rest of the people surrounding him attacked. The time slowed down as he ripped arms and heads off from all twelve attacking men and drank their blood. But his hunger hadn't been fulfilled, he looked at the people around him, they were too terrified to even run away. By now, Adam had lost all his coherent thoughts, and only one word echoed in his mind:

_**Kill!**_

Adam grabbed the nearest person by the throat and sunk fangs on her throat, took few gulps before he ripped her head off and spun around, plunged his both hands into chests of two men, pulled their hearts out and then turned to the next prey. He and Helena had become killing machines that were pulling heads, arms, legs off and drinking their blood.

During their rampage, a few men managed to shoot at Helena and Adam, but they were berserk vampires full of blood, they barely noticed the wounds they got.

It didn't take two of them long to kill everyone in the village.

When there wasn't anyone to kill anymore, Adam grabbed the arm of the ax buried deep in his head and pulled it out. Then he began to pull out the arrows and blades from his body. While he was doing that, Helena looked at the bodies surrounding her, and her eyes widened. Then she dropped to her knees and began to cry, curling into a fetal position.

Adam went to her and picked her up. "What is it? Why are you… crying?"

"I killed them!" Helena screamed. "I killed them all!"

Adam pulled the girl tightly against his body and instinctively began to stroke her back. "It's okay," He said as he walked into the church in the middle of the village.

"No, it is not! I killed them all!" Helena cried, burying her face in his chest.

Inside of the building, Adam sat down, holding the crying girl in his embrace, letting her cry her heart out, not knowing what else he could do. He held the wailing and crying girl, trying to do his best to comfort her until she fell asleep in his lap. After Helena had fallen asleep, Adam gently laid him on the church bench.

Then he sighed and ripped off the heads of the bodies inside of the church. After that, he methodically went through the village and ripped off the heads of the bodies. He didn't really care if they woke up as monsters or not, but he did it for Helena. Adam was sure that if the girl waked up surrounded by the dead monster people, she would be terrified, and Adam didn't want that.

All he wanted was Helena to be happy.

For weeks Adam and tried to make Helena come back life, but she just kept weeping, he barely managed to make her drink from the animals he brought to her. He had to hold the living animal on her face and cut a small would into them to make her drink. For a long time, Adam was sure that she would never get over them, killing all the people in the small village she had been born and raised. A few times he killed the people who came to the village, and every time he did that Helena fell back on silent sobbing.

Then he took Helena on his lap and began to walk toward the rising sun. Further away they got from her home village more often, Helena was willing to drink. Three weeks he had been traveling when Helena spoke.

"Can I die?" She asked.

"I don't know," Adam replied. "Do you want to die?"

Helena was silent for a long moment. "No, I don't want to die, but I don't want to be a monster either," she looked at him. "Can I stop myself?"

"Doing what?" Adam asked.

"Murdering people, can I stop myself doing that?"

"Yes, or, at least, I can. In the village, I resisted the urge to kill until they attacked me. If I can do it, you can do it."

Helena nodded. "Can you teach that to me?"

"I don't know, maybe if we start with animals. I bring an animal and make a cut, and you resist the urge to drink as long as you can. I don't expect you to be able to resist it forever at first, but we can do it until you can stop yourself drinking from them."

Helena smiled weakly. "Let's try that," she sighed. "I envy you, Adam."

Adam frowned. "Why?"

"You don't feel anything."

"I have feelings," Adam said.

"You don't feel guilty about killing people."

"No, I don't. They are my prey, just like a rabbit is a wolf's prey."

Helena shook her head. "People aren't preys."

"Yes, they are, if they'd be predators, they would have eaten us."

Helena giggled surprising him. "Adam, you are strange."

"Perhaps others are strange?"

"No, you are strange," Helena looked into his eyes. "Do you feel anything else? Does anything make you happy?"

"I feel… I feel a need to hold you, that makes me happy," Adam picked her on his lap and smiled at the girl. "You make me happy."

* * *

TBC

**AN:** In this story, Helena is abused in all the ways a girl-child can be abused, except she's still a virgin. The reason for her virginity is because her pedophiliac psychopath of a father had planned to sell her virginity to the highest bidder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, 1499**

During the years Adam and Helena traveled in Eastern Europe, they both learned many things about the world and human society and what their abilities were. Even though physically, Helena stayed same than the day she had been turned into a vampire, psychologically Helena grew fast, and they became equals.

In fact, Adam relied on Helena's knowledge and ingenuity, and most of the time, she made the decisions for him.

Adam had nothing against that.

After they had learned that it was their bite that turned people, Helena had created a theory that Adam was the first of their kind of a vampire, that he had lived centuries alone in the forest. Not knowing that some of the animals he'd bitten had been turned into vampires and they, in turn, had bitten humans infecting them with the vampirism.

They were in Constantinople when Helena suddenly froze and tilted her head to look at two men following them. "I can hear their thoughts," she said.

"Huh?" Adam said, looking at the men. He had learned to interpret people's emotions from the scents they produced, and he could connect with Helena's mind and hear her thoughts, but never had he heard the thoughts of humans. "How do you do it?"

Helena looked at the men. "Just… imagine their souls and then imagine that you create a link between their souls and your mind," she growled. "they are going to rob and kill you and sell me to a slave."

Adam smiled. "Can we feed on them?"

"Yes, we can, and it is a good thing that they are murderers, I am hungry," Helena replied, holding her hands up. Adam picked her into his lap and carrying her turned to a dark alley, and started to pretend that he was tired of carrying sleeping Helena. It was one of the tricks they used to lure the street thugs into a trap. No one feared father with a small child.

Helena had gotten in the taste of the human blood, and as much as she hated killing people, she still craved the human blood too much for her to resist it. She had created her own set of rules which she could kill. Helena drank only from people she thought that the world was a better place after they had died and Adam had happily agreed on her.

Not because he cared who he killed, though he had met dozens of interesting people and even be-friended with a few men, he still saw humans as his prey and preys were there only to be fed on. Adam had learned that he liked humanity in general, but he still wasn't worrying morality of his actions, but it always upset Helena when he killed people Helena saw to be innocent. So, Adam obeyed Helena's rules to whom he could feed on.

On the dark alley, leaning on the wall, pretending to breathe hard, Adam listened to the men coming to the alley holding Helena in his lap. When Helena jumped off his lap, Adam spun around and grabbed the man behind him by the throat. He pulled the street thug to his embrace and sunk his fangs into the man's neck and gulped down every drop of his delicious blood. Then he pulled the man's head off.

While Helena was finishing her meal, Adam examined dead man's pockets, there weren't any money, but he had not expected there to be, men who attacked them rarely had any money. But they often had other interesting things in their pockets. Adam picked the blade the man had intended to kill him, he liked it.

"How many knives do you have?" Helena asked, wiping her mouth.

"Six," Adam replied. "this is a nice knife, I like how the blade shines in light blue."

"Why are you so fascinated about knives and daggers?"

Adam shrugged putting the knife into its sheath and slid it into his side pocket. "They are sharp and shiny."

Helena laughed. "You're like a magpie…. I have to introduce you to gold and diamonds."

"Huh?"

"If you like shiny things then you'll love gold and diamonds," Helena said. "let's go and find a place to stay for the day."

Adam nodded, they both hated the headaches that sunlight gave them, and mostly they slept the day away and got up when the sun was setting. Helena guided them out of the harbor, and then she hired a carriage to take them to a Hotel. Because Helena wanted to stay in Hotels, Adam, sometimes picked a rich man as his food and took his money and looted his home.

Adam hated the noises and smells of the places where humans dwelt, but he was alright traveling from a town to town and living in Hotels or houses of their victims because Helena liked to live that way. In the Hotel room he closed the curtains and laid on the floor, he hated the softness of the bed. Soon they both were fast asleep.

Sometimes Adam had strange dreams about other vampires hunting him, when he had one of those dreams, after waking up he wondered why he had been so scared of them? The vampires in his dreams seemed to be weak, and they had strange ridges on their foreheads. And their eyes were yellow, not red like his or Helena's eyes. When he had told Helena about his dreams, she concluded that he had been killed by one of those creatures and, for whatever reason, he had woken up as a different kind of a vampire. Helena was sure that his dreams confirmed her theory that he was the first of their kind.

Adam wanted to meet one of those vampires, he craved to taste their blood to find out if their blood was tastier and more powerful than human blood. "Sixteen years we have traveled, and we've never met one of our kind," he said.

Helena nodded. "I've been wondering that too."

"But we have seen several wolf-men," Adam smiled. "they are tasty."

Helena snorted. "Do you judge every person how their blood tastes?"

"No, I judge them by the way they smell," Adam replied. "where are we going to go next?"

"I was thinking about getting on a ship, I want to see the world and I don't care where the ship takes us."

"Then we should bring some animals with us unless you want to kill people on the ship."

"Yesterday I bought a flock of sheep, I'm planning to ship them with us to… where ever the ship is going."

Adam nodded and opened the curtains. "The sun is setting," he turned to Helena. "can you teach me how to get into their minds?"

"I can try, I learned how to do it accidentally," Helena closed her eyes and was silent for a long time. "I can do it without seeing them, the man in the next room is mourning his son who died in a war." She said opening her eyes. "imagine that your soul is separate from your body and let it out of your body, let it fly around, it will be drawn to the minds of the people."

Adam closed his eyes and tried to do let his soul free, but, even the thought of letting his soul free scared him. "I can't do it, I don't know why, but I get scared when thinking to let my soul free."

Helena shrugged. "Maybe that is my specialty, something I can do but you cannot. Like turning to shadow is something you can do but I cannot."

"Maybe," Adam replied letting his body free from its flesh cell to merge with the shadows, that was a trick he had learned when a man had shot a crossbow bolt in the heart, and the arrow had burned him. One moment he had been there, whining in pain, and the next moment, he had left his body and merged with the shadows. The painful crossbow bolt had dropped on the ground, and when he'd come back, he had killed the man.

That also had been the time when he and Helena had learned that silver could hurt them and from the man's blood Adam and learned that there were a groups who hunted and killed their kind.

Adam rode the shadows to the next room and looked at the silently sobbing man. It always made him a little dizzy when using his eyes when he was a shadow, it felt as if he had millions of eyes and could see all around him. He rode the shadow back to their room and came out of the shadow. "He is crying."

"I know," Helena said, shaking her head. "the idea of letting go of my body scares me. What if I cannot come back as you can?" she paused. "maybe that is the key. You are scared to let go of your soul, and I'm scared to let go of my body. If we can overcome our fears, we can do almost anything."

"Huh?"

"We may be able to turn into anything we want," Helena looked at him. "When letting go of your body, instead of turning to shadow, think something else… try to turn to a werewolf."

Adam shrugged, let go of his body's flesh cell and while he was merging with the shadow, he willed himself to stop that and imagined himself as a wolf-man. Nothing seemed to happen, except he felt a strange shiver going through his body. He stayed as a shadow, and he gave up and let his body turn back to the form of young human male.

"You turned into a cloud of mist," Helena said. "white and moist mist. I could touch it… well, as much as you can touch the mist."

"Oh, that was why I shivered," Adam said.

Helena nodded, furrowing her brows. "You can change shadows and mist. It should not be impossible for you the shift your shape to anything you want."

"Maybe but trying to do that can wait. We probably should go to the harbor to find how we can get into a ship."

Helena nodded and jumped down from the bed. "I'm hungry."

Adam shook his head. "I wonder where do you put all the blood you're consuming? You are less than half of my size, and you eat more than I do."

"Maybe it's an age thing? We don't know how old you are and maybe older we get less blood we need?" Helena replied.

"Might be, you drink more than twice the amount I do. We can pick something up on our way to the harbor, there ought to be some thugs there, and you can find them using your new power," Adam said.

On the way to the harbor, Helena's words reverberated in Adam's mind, he had no idea how long he had been living in the wilderness hunting animals, but he knew that he had faced many winters. He tried to remember how many, but back then, he had never paid attention to the time passing him by. He closed his eyes and recalled all the time he had just lived and hunted.

"152 winters," he muttered as he opened his eyes.

"Excuse me?" Helena asked.

"I had lived 152 winters before I met you," Adam said.

"That means that you are 168 years old," Helena said, "that is quite old."

"But, I woke up without any memories who or what I was. Who's to tell that I had not lived centuries before I lost my memories?"

"True," Helena said as they got to the harbor.

Helena picked three men and a woman for their breakfast, Adam ate the woman and left the men for Helena. When they got to the harbor, Helena gave him the instructions on what to say and how to behave when buying their and their flock of sheep transportation to some other port. Adam had learned a lot, but he still was uncomfortable talking with the people, the nagging voice in his head always was telling him that trying to talk with his prey was stupid to waste of time.

"It is a good time to leave the city, especially when you have a child," The shipowner said after their deal was done.

Adam raised his brow. "How come?"

"Haven't you heard the news?"

"No, I'm afraid that I have not paid any attention to the news," Adam replied.

"Headless bodies drained of the blood have been found everywhere. They say that the Impaler has become a bloodsucking monster, and he has come to Constantinople to revenge us conquering Wallachia."

"The Impaler? Are you talking about the Voivode Vlad Drăculea?" Helena asked.

The shipowner looked curiously at Helena. "Yes, I am, how do you know about her, little girl?"

Helena shrugged. "I read a lot, and I like history."

Adam grinned. "Which reminds me, we have four trunks, two of them full of books, will they fit into our suite?"

"Two trunks full of books?" The shipowner ruffled Helena's hair. "You really do like reading, don't you?" he said and without expecting her to reply turned back to Adam. "Yes, they will fit in without any trouble."

"Good," Adam said. "I have to go and arrange the delivery of the sheep's to the ship. We will come to the ship tomorrow evening," He waited until they were out of the office and then turned to Helena. "Could this Impaler be one of us?"

"It is possible, but I doubt it, Wladislaus has a gruesome reputation, and there were legends about him drinking and bathing in the blood long before he died. Turks just found the bodies we have left behind and the rest is just a horror story they tell to each other," Helena said. "we should remember to hide the bodies better in the future."

"Yes, we should, I like wilderness where the scavengers take care of the bodies," Adam frowned as he looked at the two men stalking a woman. "Those men don't have a heartbeat," he said and followed the men, and when he got to the entrance of the alley, he merged with the shadows. As the shadow, he watched the two men ambushed the woman, and when their faces turned, and they revealed fangs, he came out from the shadows. Helena appeared behind them.

"Leave her alone," Helena said.

The men turned to her and smirked. "Oh, little girl, you are a just the appetizer I needed," another man said.

Adam came out from the shadows behind him, and when he sunk his fangs into his neck, Helena jumped on the lap of the other vampire and sunk her fangs into another vampire's neck. Adam took only a few gulps from the strange vampire, and then he released him. "You taste awful," he growled. "your blood is dead," He then dropped the drained man on the ground and looked into the eyes of the screaming woman. "just forget this and go home," as he said that his eyes flashed red, and he felt a strange connection to the woman's eyes.

The woman stopped screaming. "Forget this and go home," she monotonously said, turned around and calmly walked out of the alley.

"Huh?" Baffled Adam said and turned to look at Helena. "did you see that?"

"Yes, I did, you somehow made her blindly obey your command," Helena said.

Adam nodded. "It felt strange," He said and kicked the head of the body on the ground. He frowned when the body turned to dust. "well, that was even stranger."

"You kicked his head off," Helena picked up a small piece of wood, and when she shoved it into the heart of the other vampire, he too crumbled to dust. "Didn't you see in his memories that they can be killed easily, sunlight, fire, decapitation, and wood into the heart kills them."

"Oh, right," Adam said.

"What are we going to do with Radu's vampire clan?" Helena asked.

Adam smirked, he had gotten a lot of information about the vampire clan located in Constantinople from the blood memories of the vampire. "Attack them, it'll be fun to fight someone with some strength. I wonder how powerful their Master Radu is? I want to fight him, I hope that he'll give some resistance. Killing people has gotten boring."

Adam quite liked Constantinople, it was relatively clean and didn't smell like shit, urine, and blood like most of the towns they had been. He liked Ottomans because they bathed regularly and smelled better than Wallachians. The well-maintained houses laid out along either side of the trail, framing a well-maintained road that was wide enough for the carts and horses alike to move without jostling one another.

When they were approaching the vampire clan's headquarter the wind brought the smell of several dead men into his nostrils. He knocked at the side door of the carriage. "Stop," He told the driver. After they had stopped Adam paid the ride. "if I'd be you, I would not stay here for a long."

"Sir, I was about to say the same, this is a bad neighborhood," The Driver said.

Adam smiled. "Oh, don't worry about us, we can handle a few thugs..." he paused, suddenly wanting to test if he could erase his memory like he probably had done to the woman that had been attacked by vampires. He stared into the eyes of the driver and imagined making contact with his soul. "you will drive back where you picked us and forget that you ever met us."

"I'll drive back and forget that I met you," The Driver said and soon he was driving away.

"That was easy," Adam told Helena. "stare at them, imagine that you contact their soul and then tell their soul what to do."

Helena nodded. "It sounds similar than reading their minds. I wonder if I can do that without looking into their eyes?"

"That you have to try yourself, I'm not comfortable letting go of my soul," Adam said as they walked toward the ruined mansion at the end of the street. The dark, uninviting building looked to be waiting to crush any who dared to get in. He raised his brow when he saw only two guards; one on the roof and another one at the entrance. "Wood into the heat kills them?" he asked Helena.

"Yes, wood in heart, sunlight, fire, decapitation," Helena replied.

Adam nodded and turned to the alley on their left and picked two broken planks. When he got back to the street, he threw the five-foot plank so hard that, even though it wasn't that sharp, it entered into the chest of the vampire at the roof. The vampire crumbled to dust as he threw the other piece of the plank in the heart of the vampire guarding the entrance. The wooden plank went through the vampire and sunk deep into the door behind him.

Helena sighed. "And there went any possibility to have a surprise attack," she said as the door slowly fell down.

"How should I have known that they are so fragile?" Adam asked.

"They have human bodies, you should treat them as if they are as fragile as humans," Helena frowned as she looked at men and women rushing out of the building. "I wonder what will happen if I pull their hearts out? Can that kill them, or are they capable of regenerating their hearts?"

The vampires stopped and turned to stare at Helena. Adam snorted. "Apparently they have good hearing," he scratched his nose. "fifteen… that cannot be divided with two."

"Adam, you should not underestimate the enemy," Helena replied.

"I have the blood memories—" Adam paused, tilting his head as he watched Helena running to the closest man and plunging both of her tiny hands into the vampire's chest. When she pulled the heart out almost immediately, the man crumbled to ashes.

"Add removing their hearts to the list how to kill them," Helena said and then she became a blur of motion even for Adam's eyes and before the dumbfounded vampires had reacted in any way she had killed four of them.

Adam ran to the vampire closest to him, plunged his knifed hand through the chest of the vampire, she had a baffled and pained expression on her face just before she exploded in a cloud of dust. The next minutes two of them were killing the vampires, and by the time Adam got inside of their house, he was bored about killing them; they were too slow to be any threat to him. He slowed down to the human speed and looked at the two vampires guarding the tall, sturdy man.

"Red eyes… Zamiel!" The tall vampire cried. "Kill him!"

The two vampires attacked Adam, and he let them hit him. "Well, that actually hurt," he said as he staggered by the force of the blow. "You are slow, but you do have some strength in those dead bodies of yours."

The other vampire swung a fist into his face, The blow broke his cheekbone. The two tall, bulky vampires had managed to move in close to him, and they were raining blows and kicks on him, breaking his bones and ripping his flesh.

Suddenly they stopped, and Adam dropped down to his knees when the two men backed away from him. The most of his bones, including both of his legs, were shattered or broken. Half of Adam's left cheek, his eye, and most of his teeth were gone, and his jaw was hanging. He fell on his back. "Not so cocky anymore, eh?" Another vampire said standing above him. "we are three centuries old Master vampires,"

Adam smirked, and when he got up without bending his back, two vampires jumped away from him. Adam pushed his jaw back into its place. "That actually hurt, a couple dozen of men like you probably could really hurt me," As he spoke his body began to regenerate itself. "now, I believe is my turn," Then he hit the face of the other vampire sending him flying backward. He then exchanged blows with the vampires for a minute, fully enjoying the fight.

"Stop playing with them," Helena said.

Adam sighed and, moving with his full speed, ripped off the heads of the two vampires. "Happy now?"

"No, their Master fled," Helena said.

Adam nodded. "I think that he knows more about our kind than we do."

"What makes you think so?" Helena asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"He called me Zamiel when he saw my red eyes as if knowing who I am," Adam said sniffing the air. "follow me, I got his scent."

"Samael is the archangel of destruction in Talmud, it is Hebrew and means Poison of God."

"Sounds like a nice man," Adam said and jumped down from the window following the scent trail. Five minutes later, he ran into the small stone house, and in seconds, he found the Master vampire hiding in the basement. "you have seen one of us?"

"Will you kill me? Only kill me and not to impale me?" Terrified Master vampire asked.

Adam wondered what kind of a man Zamiel was if he caused such fear in a creature like the Master vampire. "If you tell me what I need to know I will not kill you."

The Master relaxed a little. "They say that Zamiel always keeps his word."

"Who is Zamiel?" Adam asked.

"We don't have time for this," Helena said and jumped on the lap of the Master vampire and wrapped her tiny legs around him as she sunk her fangs into his neck. The vampire struggled, but Helena was too strong. She didn't let go of him as they fell to the ground. Finally, she got up and wiped the blood from her mouth. "Vlad Țepeș is one of us, he still is fighting against Ottomans,"

"Maybe we should find him, he might be able to tell what kind of abilities we have."

"And, more importantly, perhaps he can tell us about our weaknesses, we only know that silver hurts us. He might know if we can be killed and how, that is valuable knowledge," Helena said. "However, we already bought the tickets to Porto Ercole, Italy. We could start looking for him there,"

"It would be nice to meet one of our own," Adam said.

"Or, he might try to kill us."

"If he does, I'm sure that two of us can kill him."

"You are too confident facing an unknown enemy. For all we know, Wladislaus could be ten times stronger than we are," Helena said.

Adam nodded. "As always, you are right, we have to find out more about him."

"Indeed."

* * *

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Hemmingstedt, Germany, 1500**

Adam and Helena were riding following the seashore, the rain was pouring down on them when they heard gun and cannon fire through the sound of thunder. They rode to the hill to look at the battlefield below them.

Half a year earlier, Adam had drained the knowledge about the warfare from a Holy Roman Empire's general, and he shook his head. It was a gruesome sight; two armies lined up shoulder to shoulder, in the battlefield. Even the old general had thought that the way battles were fought was idiotic.

There were three lines of men on both sides, first-line shot, moved behind to reload, and a new first-line shot and so forth. It was easy to learn as long as you knew how to load your arquebus. Two groups of soldiers were just killing each other, mostly because targets didn't move.

The battlefield was full of dead or dying men. Adam heard someone coming behind them, and he turned to look. There were nine soldiers, all of them pointing their arquebus at him. Apparently, they didn't think Helena as a threat.

"Whatever happens, don't kill them until I give you an order," Adam told Helena, and then he looked at the sergeant. "Hello there, what appears to be the problem?" Adam hollered.

"Peasants or Friedrich?" The soldier asked.

Adam shrugged. "Neither."

The sergeant fired his arquebus. Adam could have easily dodged the bullet, shooting with an arquebus was slow to process, and he was so fast that he could have killed the man before the bullet left the barrel. But he was interested to see what they would do to Helena if they'd thought he was death. Adam let the bullet hit him in the chest and as he fell on the ground Helena calmly stared at the soldiers.

They laughed, and Helena said, "Adam, can I kill them? They want to rape and kill me."

As Adam got up, all nine soldiers got scared and fired their muskets. His body shook as the bullets hit him, one of the soldiers managed to get hit straight on between the eyes. "Auch," Adam said, wiggling his brows as his body pushed the led balls out from it.

The soldiers turned around and fled the scene. Adam read their minds, six of the nine weren't evil men, killers, yes, but that was what soldiers do; they kill. They weren't killers because they liked it, it just was their job. But three of them, including the sergeant, had been planning to rape and kill Helena who looked to be a young girl.

Adam glanced at Helena. "I suppose a little bloodletting is in order," he said, "but kill only the killers. The sergeant is mine."

Helena nodded, and under two seconds, she'd sunk her fangs into a soldier's neck. When Adam caught the sergeant, he was holding a bayonet on the throat of a young boy who had been under his command. "Take him! He's young!" the sergeant said.

Adam shook his head. "Ah, but his soul doesn't belong to me. Your soul, on the other hand, is dark and belongs to the Devil," he said and faster than the mortal could react Adam grabbed the bayonet and twisted it away from the boy's throat. Then he grabbed the sergeant by the throat and smiled at the boy as he read his mind. "Eilert, leave now, go home and ask Grethe to marry you, have children, and live a long life. You have a pure soul."

"A-are you the A–A–Antichrist?" the boy stammered.

"No, I'm..." Adam paused when the sergeant screamed and kicked him. He squeezed his throat hard enough to break his Adam's apple to stop the screaming. Then Adam looked at the boy. "I was born in the soul of misery. Never had me a name, but I have been called the Antichrist," he said and sighed when the scared boy still stood there, silently staring at him. "Eilert, as much as I would like to take your soul, I cannot. There are rules I have to obey, it's a shame, but that's the way it is. Go now. Live."

The heartbeat of the sergeant had started to slow down, Adam had squeezed his throat too hard, and he was dying. Adam opened his mouth and licked the man's face showing him the mouth full of sharp fangs to scare him a bit more; Adam loved the taste of the adrenaline in the blood. He then bit him and drained him from the blood.

When Adam was finished, he ripped his head off. The boy, Eilert, had been watching Adam from the tree line. Smiling Adam waved to him as he turned into a cloud of mist and flowed upward of the hill until he was away from the boy's sight.

"We should leave Germany," Helena said when Adam got to her.

Adam nodded. "Next stop is Rotterdam, I've heard good things about it," he replied.

"Meaning that there's a lot of murderers," Helena said.

"Exactly."

* * *

**Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1500**

The Rotterdam was a busy harbor city. Adam didn't really like it, but rarely did he like the places where humans lived. The awful smells and sounds mortals made irritated him. He had started his life as a naked man in the winter wilderness, and sometimes he missed that part of his life.

On their third day in Rotterdam Adam killed a slave trader who traded small girls and boys to the perverted men. Adam didn't know why, but he was enraged by the people who hurt children, and he never just killed them. First, he tortured and raped the perverts to make them feel the pain they had caused to the children. Only after they had suffered enough did he let them die.

Adam and Helena moved into the slave trader's house and made a home in there. After that, they hunted and killed every member of the pedophilic slave trader ring, confiscating everything they owned. Helena saw it as her holy mission to kill all of the men who had bought and enslaved young black girls and boys.

"And these beings call us monsters," Adam said, shaking his head while Helena helped four girls and two boys out from a dungeon where they had found them. The dungeon was full of instruments of torture. The girls and the boys they'd found from the torture chamber were between four and ten years old.

"We are monsters, but some humans are much worse monsters than we are," Helena said, "I want to send these kids to a school."

Adam shrugged. "Okay, we have more than enough money to pay their education," he said, "but you do understand that we can't adopt them?"

"I know... but we can't just leave them either. These kids have been through hell. They deserve to have a chance in life."

Adam sighed, sometimes he could not understand Helena. He lifted a small and skinny boy on his shoulders and took two girls in his arms. The city was too far for the children to walk. "I'm sure that you will find a good place for them."

Three weeks, the slave trader's mansion where they lived was full of little people. They were children, but their childhood had been stolen from them. They didn't dare to yell or play. They were an eerily quiet bunch of mortal children.

Adam was relieved when Helena found a place for them. The girls would go to a Catholic nunnery and the boys to a monastery. Before they left the children, Adam compelled the Mother Superior of the nunnery and the Abbot of the monastery to make sure that they'll try their best to give the black children the best education possible.

"Are you sure that they won't abuse kids?" Helena asked when they left the monastery.

"Yes, but we should come back and check them out," Adam said, "just to make sure that they're treated well."

Helena nodded. "Men like those rapists makes me hate humanity."

"I don't care enough about humanity to hate them," Adam said.

"And yet you only kill evil people."

"Yes, but only because you want me to kill people who are hurting others," Adam said.

"Yes, I believe that if we kill enough evil people ideas of the good people have a chance. We have to kill, humans are our food so we might as well try to make the world a little better place," Helena said, "and it isn't as if there is a shortage of murderers and evil people for us to eat."

Adam nodded, there wasn't much more to say about that issue.

Back in Rotterdam, Helena started a money lending business using Adam's name since he was an adult and a man. She taught him how the money lending business worked, and Adam quickly learned that making money was easy when you had a lot of money begin with. Money lending was a business that had high profits and low risk.

Their business flourished, in fact, soon they had to stop expanding the business because it was becoming too big and they were fast becoming so rich that people noticed them. The Church had spies everywhere, and they didn't want the church to send demon hunters after them.

Four and half years later they were still in Rotterdam. In a way, it was a safe haven for vampires. It was a busy city, in which people came and left, and if someone suddenly disappeared, no one would ask any questions. In harbors, like in any other place where the money exchanged hands, there always were loads of people who were ready to murder for a nickel.

So, it wasn't surprising that Rotterdam attracted vampires. For a while, Adam had fun killing revenant-vampires, but ultimately he got bored about that. Even when he tried not to use too much of his strength and power, he still was far too strong and fast for demon clad corpses. He and Helena continued killing them to keep them out of their city, but it became a tedious job.

In their boredom, they got acquainted with the Rotterdam nightlife. Adam loved to watch the plays; they often were gruesome and inventive. And after people got to know him as a somewhat wealthy man, they started to get invitations to balls and other parties of the rich and bored.

In one of those balls, the music suddenly stopped. The attention of the people in the ballroom was riveted with intensity on a tall, elderly female. The place was silently watching her till she sat on a cushioned seat they brought her.

Adam listened to the whispers, and then he looked at the lady, she was some sort of the matriarch of a shipping company. Everyone in the room seemed to know that she was the real force behind the success of the business even though officially her husband was the owner.

She looked at Helena and Adam as they got out from the dance floor. Adam had learned that most of the time, people ignored their red eyes. If they didn't, it was easy for him to make them think that red eyes were perfectly normal.

The old lady, Mrs. Anker, locked her eyes with his._ [Vampire, those two are vampires!]_ Was the first thought Adam heard when he read the older woman's mind. She wasn't afraid; she was excited. She told her servant that she wanted to meet Adam.

Adam nodded to her and got up before the servant had moved. "Stay here, the lady wants to talk to me," Adam told Helena. "If it comes to it, use the second escape route."

Helena nodded. "I'll be listening."

When Adam got over to the older woman, the servant introduced them to each other. Adam wondered where the servant had learned who he was. The whole ballroom was quietly staring at them. Mrs. Anker motioned Adam to sit down and right after he had sat beside her musicians started to play. At first, they talked about the banking business.

Then suddenly she motioned her servant to leave them alone and stopped beating the bush. "You are a vampire, are you not?"

Adam nodded, there was no reason to decline, Mrs. Anker already was sure about his true nature and, if needed, he could always erase that knowledge from her mind. "Yes, I am, and no, I cannot turn you into one of us."

Mrs. Anker raised her brow. "You cannot, or you won't turn me?"

"Cannot," Adam said. "You have three sons, and we can turn only virgins of the opposite sex. That is why all of us look to be so young. If I'd try to turn you, you'd become a mindless undead being."

Adam wasn't lying, a few years earlier Helena had done some testing with humans, and she had found out that virgins became like them and non-virgins became mindless monsters. After she'd finished her study, Helena had killed the two girls that Adam had turned and the six boys she had turned. When Adam had asked why Helena killed their young fledglings, she told him that one undead child in the world was enough.

"Just my luck, when I found a vampire, it becomes clear that I am 32 years too late to be turned," she said.

As he read her mind, Adam was surprised to find that Mrs. Anker had accepted that the eternal life wasn't for her and she'd have to find another goal in life.

After that, they continued talking about banking. In half an hour, they got into an agreement that Helena telepathically suggested to Adam. Mrs. Anker would be the public face of their banking business, and she'd get her share of the income. Helena and Adam had not expanded their business only because they feared that, if they'd get too rich, Vatican demon hunters would notice them.

"I'm hungry," Helena said when Adam got back to her.  
She led him to the small garden, and after she was sure that no one could see them, Helena disappeared into the shadows. Adam turned to a host of sparrows and followed Helena flying high above the city.

When Helena got out from the shadows, Adam landed beside her. In front of them was the area of the city where no sane man would go dressed as finely as they were. And women wouldn't even dream of going there.

In no time, they were surrounded by thugs. "You know," Adam said, "I've always wondered why do they even try? I mean, we've come here four years in a row, you'd expect them to learn that it is not a good idea to attack the well-dressed man with a girl."

"What did you expect? They're street thugs," Helena replied as she grabbed one of them and sunk her fangs into his neck.

Adam sighed and quickly cracked skulls of four of the men before he drank from them. After they had eaten, Adam phased their bodies deep into the ground. When he got out of the ground, he took a deep whiff and wrinkled his nose. "The smell of burning tar. If there's one thing in this city I hate, it is the smell of tar."

"It covers the smell of garbage and shit," Helena said.

"True enough. So what do you think if we'd start traveling again after we've signed the deal with Mrs. Anker? I would want to leave this city and go to the next seaport? I've always wanted to see Port of Lisbon."

"I'd like that. All of the demons and vampires have fled Rotterdam in fear that we'll kill them, this is not a fun town anymore," Helena said.

Adam smiled, and then, on a whim, he bit his wrist and placed it in Helena's mouth. "Drink," he said.

Helena sucked his blood into her. Adam smiled when he felt her getting stronger. When she stopped drinking, Adam shook his head as he again ripped his wrist open and put it in her mouth. "Drink, that wasn't enough." When she was finished drinking his blood, Adam kissed her forehead. "I don't know why I made you drink my blood. I just felt that it had to be done to make you strong, and I now know it was the right thing to do. I can sense that you now are much more powerful than you were only moments ago."

Helena looked at her hands. "Yes. The power is flowing in my veins now. I didn't know anyone can be this powerful. I feel like I'm a God," then she frowned. "And really, Adam? That little redhead in Constantinople? You were tempted to turn her? I am insulted that you even considered to make her my sister."

Adam laughed. "What can I say, I was young, and she was pretty. Besides, I slept with her, thus making it impossible for me to turn her. And I turned you. Shouldn't that count for something?"

"Yes," Helena said, shaking her head. "Your blood memories... you are a strange man. I wish I'd know what kind of boy you were when you were alive."

"So do I. So... we are going to leave Rotterdam behind and start traveling again?"

"Yes, after we have signed the deal with Mrs. Anker, I'll write the basis of our contract with her today."

Next years just flew away. They traveled through Europe; Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain. They came into the town, stayed a few years until demons and vampires, whom they hunted for fun and game, fled the place and then they moved to the next town.

They saw all the things Helena had ever wanted to see in Europe. Helena, who loved art and hated the patriarchal society, became a patron of many female artists, writers, scientists, and philosophers. She spent vast amounts of money to help women who had ambitions and talents.

Adam didn't mind her spending their money that way. They were rich, he didn't care about money, and he hated the way men treated women and children. In the hands of Mrs. Anker, the small loan business became a Bank in Rotterdam. Helena created a branch office of that Bank in every place she spent more than a year or two.

When Mrs. Anker's ruthless son took over her business, he and Helena expanded the business. Helena knew that Abraham Anker was skimming on them, but it didn't matter as long as he wasn't telling anyone what she and Adam were.

In time Adam became worried about Helena. Slowly she developed an unhealthy blood addiction. They needed to feed twice or thrice a month, but Helena was killing five, six, even ten men in a week.

Helena was slowly slipping from her ideals of killing evil men, and Adam had promised her that he wouldn't let her kill innocents. Adam shared her view that treating women as the property was terrible behavior, but it wasn't bad enough to kill men who acted that way.

It was how women were treated at that time, and if Helena wanted to kill men who thought that they owned their wives and children, she'd have to kill all men in the world. Not to mention that men actually believed that they were protecting women when they kept their wives and daughters locked in their homes.

Then, one night, when Adam had left Helena alone and went hunting to the wilderness, she had destroyed a whole town. When Adam came back, the city was in a fire, it looked like it'd been destroyed by an army.

As he walked through the burning town Adam shook his head, he'd already read Helena's mind, and he knew what had happened. A bunch of men had tried to rape her, and a girl painter and Helena had lost herself to the bloodlust and killed everyone in the town.

Adam found Helena lying on the balcony of their house in a fetal position. He picked Helena up and carried her into the house and tugged her on the bed. He crawled into the bed and pulled his vampire daughter to him and started to stroke her forehead.

"It was a monstrous thing to do," Adam told her, "but I do understand you. They tried to rape you and the girl, and you snapped. There still is a human mind inside of you. It was an all too human rage that you released. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I should have been here, I promised to make sure you won't kill innocents, and I failed on that."

"No," Helena whimpered, "it's not your fault," she shivered. "I just killed and killed and killed and killed and killed and..." she chanted that for minutes like it was some kind of a mantra. Then she stopped talking and all through the night Adam just held her, knowing that there wasn't anything else he could do. When Helena finally fell asleep, Adam tugged her in the bed and went out.

A few days earlier it had been a lively town of twenty thousand people, now it looked as if earthquake, tornado, and war had hit the city at the same time.

Helena had wiped the whole town from the map.

When Adam finally got to the edge of town, he found an army unit of soldiers; they were coming to examine what had happened to the town.

It was a time for them to continue their journey.

* * *

**You should Google the Battle of Hemmingsted, it is a good example**** how the terrain can be used as a "weapon" of war.**

**Rotterdam has been an important port ****since 1340s****.**

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **English is not my native language. Also, I'm not a writer, I'm an engineer. So, there will be blood^Wmistakes and typos and probably plot and pot holes too. (Which reminds me; I should check if the cuttings have been rooted yet.)

About Helena...

Even though Helena was a child when she was turned into a vampire and her personality had not yet been fully developed, she still was old enough for her parent(s) (and the society in which she grew up) to plant some (moral) values into her. So, Helena's moral values are—sort of—Christian values. Since I don't know what kind of values the (Catholic) Church promoted back in the 15th century, I'm creating my own versions of those to fit my idea of who Helena is and who she will become.

And, since Helen is Adam/Xander's mentor, she is implementing some of her values to him.

Also, since Helena was abused as a child—as was mentioned earlier in the story when she was turned—by her father, it is understandable that, even though Helena thinks that she is above humans, she still detests unnecessary cruelty. Especially she loathes child abusers.

Oh, the Death mentioned in this chapter is Methos/Adam Pierson from the Highlander TV-series. Later in the story, Adam/Xander will befriend with Methos and a few other Immortals.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**Bologna, Kingdom of Italy, 1509**

Adam felt like he'd been waiting beside Helena's deathbed. She was slipping away, she had never been afraid of killing for her food. But destroying a town was another thing. Helena was terrified of herself. She was Adam's only companion, his daughter by the blood. Adam hated to watch her dwelling in her self-hatred.

One night in Bologna, when Adam was hunting, he suddenly felt a mind that was in awe of some gargoyle. The beautiful young woman could not have found a worse place to look for the art. She was surrounded by predators. Placing his hand on the first man's mouth, Adam silently drained him. Then he killed two other men stalking the young woman before he went to her.

Adam looked at the gargoyle, the young woman had a good taste. The gargoyle she was interested in was beautifully carved and, though it looked like a demon ready to jump on you, it still looked like it could be gentle when it kills you. "Have you heard the legend of Gargouille?" Adam asked.

The young woman didn't even flinch, but she was squeezing a knife on her hand. "No, I have not," she said.

"The Gargouille was a long and ruthless sea serpent which emerged from the Parisian river the Seine and began to spew water. It created a great tidal wave, and whatever the flood did not kill, the dragon ate," Adam said, "the humans condemned the dragon to die by fire since it killed with water. Since then the rainwater from the roof of churches has come out from monstrous sculptors called gargoyles."

The young woman looked at the gargoyle. "That's why its mouth is open."

Adam nodded. "When it rains, the water from the roof is directed to the drains, and it comes out from its mouth," he sighed, "this is not a good place to be out at night."

"Nights are only time I can escape from home to see the sculpture," the young woman said.

Adam read her mind, she wanted to be an artist, but she also knew that art was a male-dominated field. She feared she'd never had any change to do what she wanted. "Do you want to touch it?" he asked, "I can take you up there."

The young woman was in two minds; on the one, hand she feared Adam, he was one of the men who might want to harm her. On the other hand, she wanted to see the gargoyle. Finally, her need to see how the gargoyle had been sculptured won, and she nodded. Adam wrapped his arms around her waist and said, "Don't fear, I won't drop you."

When Adam floated upward, she was terrified, but when they got to the gargoyle, she forgot everything. All she saw was the gargoyle. She stroked it and then she started to examine it, trying to find out how it had been made. Adam smiled as he sensed the young woman's joy as she lost herself to her own world where she'd be carving stone figures like the one in front of her.

She took her sweet time to examine it, but Adam didn't mind, he was enthralled by the way her mind worked; she didn't think as much with the words but with the pictures. Her mind was busy ideas and images.

Amazingly, the young woman figured how the gargoyle had been forged, and in her mind, she already was copying it on the apricot stone. Adam smiled when he realized that the young woman was an artist. He'd have to introduce her to Helena. She would want to help the young woman to achieve her dream and, hopefully in the process, Helena would forget her enormous guilt about destroying a town full of people.

"Thank you," she said when we landed back on the street. "I'm Properzia."

"I'm Adam. There is someone I want you to meet. I'll escort you to your home and tomorrow I will bring someone to meet you and your parents."

Adam and Properzia walked through Bologna, and the young woman didn't say anything, but in her mind, there were pictures, sculptures, and a constant feed of images. At her home, Adam again took hold of her waist and floated her to her window so that she didn't have to climb up there.

"What are you?" She asked.

"Something outside of nature," Adam smiled when he heard her thoughts; she was intrigued by the idea of him being something that wasn't natural. She wasn't afraid of him; she was just curious. "I promise you that I will never hurt you, and neither will my sister. She is known to spend a lot of money the help women artists."

"Why?"

"Her mother was a talented and intelligent woman, she carved miniature statues from the wood, but when she married her husband ordered her to stop, because art wasn't suitable for a woman," Adam lied. "Helena saw how miserable her mother was when she wasn't allowed to do her art, and Helena doesn't want any woman to go through that. And now that she can help she is helping women."

"Her mother? Wouldn't that be your mother too? Didn't you say she's your sister?"

"Yes, but she's not my sister by blood," Adam said, placing his hand over his unbeating heart, "but by the heart. Sometimes family is more about heart and mind than blood. I love her like a sister, so, in all of the ways that matter she is my sister."

Properzia smiled. "I understand."

"I know you do... now, go to sleep, tomorrow I will come to meet your father and ask if we can pay for your training... you want to be a sculptor, and I hope we can help you with that," Adam sighed, "I cannot promise that your father will allow us to do that, but we will try."

Her eyes flickered with mirth, then she lowered her head. "What if the father says no?"

"Properzia, as you know, this is the men's world. There will always be men trying to stop you doing what you want. You cannot fight the whole world, but you can always find a way to bend the rules, just like you've done with your apricot stone sculptures. They don't let you sculpt marble, so you make art out of apricot stones.

"And you can use wood or bronze or anything you can use. But, whatever you do, never stop making art. I may not look it, but I'm a very old man, and I've learned that science, art, and literature are things that elevate humans above animals. The world will always need more art. Never stop making art."

Properzia smiled. "I won't."

"Good girl," Adam said, "now, go to bed, we will see tomorrow."

When Adam left, he kept listening Properzia's thoughts, her mind and imagination was first one he'd met that used all of her senses when she imagined things. She imagined even the smells. When Adam got back to our Hotel room, Helena was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Adam connected into her mind, and without a word showed her the meeting with Properzia. Then he showed Helena the things Properzia imagined.

Helena sat up and stared at Adam. "Is she real?"

"Yeah, if anyone Properzia is a born artist and she needs your help."

Helena swung her legs on the floor and stood up. "I need to feed," she said, "and I know what you are trying to do, why you want me to work with her."

"Of course you do," Adam said, raising his eyebrow, "is it working?"

"Maybe... I don't know... all of the innocent lives I took, that will always be my burden till I die... but helping her... it will be a start."

"And you aren't thinking about killing yourself anymore, that is a one battle I've already won," Adam said, "let's get into the harbor, there's a gang of humans who sell other humans to a revenant clan for them to eat."

Fourteen hours later, Adam and Helena were in Properzia home talking with her father. Helena had been ready to mess with his mind to make him accept that his daughter had a precious gift that needed to be honed.

But the man surprised them; he already knew about his daughter's talent and was willing to let her have tutors. Properzia's father was an extraordinary man; he wanted to protect his daughter, but at the same time, he wanted her to be happy.

"I will stay here for a while," Helena said when she and Adam had gotten out from Properzia's home. "But it might be a good idea if you'd leave. Giovanni fears that you want to rape his daughter."

"I would never do that, I might kill her, but I'd never rape her," Adam said, and then he frowned as he realized something, "I'm 172 years old, and I have never had sex. I've seen and felt it happening in the minds of the mortals I have devoured, but I have never done it. Perhaps I should hire a prostitute?"

"Perhaps," Helena said. "You can do that in Florence, you've always wanted to see Florence, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have," Adam said. "You want me to go to Florence while you stay with Properzia, don't you?"

"Yes," Helena said.

"I guess I could do that even though I don't like to be so far away from you... not now when you're..." Adam sighed deeply.

"When I'm depressed, you can say it," Helena said. "I promise that I won't do anything hasty. And I will be too busy creating a network of women who can help each other to dwell in my depression. And it's not like you'd be too far for us to talk."

Adam nodded; their telepathic connection worked fine from hundreds of miles away. Even in Florence, Adam still would be able to talk to Helena. "Fine, I will go to Florence," he said, offering his wrist to Helena. "But only if you take more of my blood. I want you to be strong."

* * *

On the way out of the Florence Adam met German occult writer and philosopher Agrippa. The occult writer's mind interested Adam so much that, instead of going to Florence, he befriended with Agrippa and followed him to Cologne. Adam spent the next years first as a student at the University of Cologne and later he taught autopsy techniques to willing students of medicine.

**The Republic of Florence (Italy), 1524**

Adam finally entered Florence at the end of 1524, and it was booming with artists, philosophers, writers, and scholars. He felt as if the crème de la crème of human minds had decided to live in Florence. Which was the reason Adam had wanted to visit there; he wanted to see if renowned scholars were as intelligent as Helena.

Adam introduced himself as a Wallachian nobleman and told them about legends about vampires in Transylvania and Wallachia. Adam got the philosophers attention when he introduced them to an idea of a vampire with a human soul who was born as an adult vampire without any memories of ever being a human.

Two weeks later, Adam heard that someone had published an essay about it. Adam paid a man to copy it. When he read the essay was baffled when he read it; the writer, Niccolò Machiavelli, described the way his mind worked as if he knew him. Niccolò understood the primal nature of human beings even better than he did. Which really didn't surprise Adam; after all, he had never been a human.

"Lord Lupei, may I ask, what are you reading?" An older man dressed as monk asked Adam.

"Machiavelli's newest essay, padre," Adam replied, "He managed to get inside of a mind of a being that is not a human. He is a remarkable man."

"May I see it?" The monk asked.

Adam handed it to him and peeked inside of the monks' mind. "Padre, what is your name?"

"Ah, forgive me, Lord Lupei," he replied, "I'm Merlino Coccajo, a monk and a poet."

As Adam read his mind, he found it interesting that the monk had not introduced himself with his real name, but his pseudonym. From his mind, Adam got that, even though he was a firm believer he still had some knowledge about magic and he was sure that names had power. "Yes, I remember now, you are a macaronic poet," Adam replied, "And please, call me Adam."

He smiled. "Only if you call me Merlino."

"Agreed," Adam got up, "Merlino, I'm going to buy another bottle of wine, do you want anything?"

"I am fine, thank you," Merlino replied and started to read the essay.

"I think Niccolò is wrong if the undead has no memories about ever being a human, why would it create a morality code about killing innocents?" Merlino said after he had read the paper, "More likely it would kill without ever thinking about the lives it kills."

"True," Adam replied, "but you forgot the part where it devours the memories of its victims. Those memories would have an effect on it. After all, what else are we than the sum of our memories?"

"Then, if there is that kind of monster out there, we have to hope that its first victims would be highly moral and innocent people," Merlino replied, "If its first kills were murderers, it would see us as rodents."

Adam had not told the philosophers about Helena and how she taught him. "Maybe... what if he'd have a God-fearing teacher?"

"Interesting theory... but that is not what intrigues me in Niccolò's study. I believe that what we are is a combination of three parts: body, mind, and soul. Body, of course, is only a temporary vessel for the eternal soul. But..." Merlino scratched his jaw, and he lowered his voice before he continued, "my theory is that while the flesh is alive, all three are interconnected; what affects one affects all three of them. What I've been wondering is: how much does the mind affect the soul? If, as some believe it to be, our sinful actions taint the soul..." He stopped.

"Please, Merlino, continue, this is getting interesting," Adam smiled. "And at least up to this point I'm still with you."

"All our actions, be they good or evil, are triggered by the mind... if, in our youth, we have a teacher who teaches us what is good for our soul and what is not, as adults we should know what we are doing. But, if we grow up without any guidance... how can we know what taints the soul and what doesn't?" He said. "The boy who's abandoned by his parents and priests at an early age, who essentially raises himself, cannot learn the difference between good and evil. If that boy does something evil without knowing that it is a bad thing to do... how can that taint his soul? God would not be that cruel."

"So, ignorance is the key to heaven regardless of what you do?" Adam asked.

He laughed. "It is not that simple, we have to take Our Lord's words into account: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. But, you are partly right, assuming that the ignorant boy believes in God and Christ, but have not learned any other teachings of Our Lord and doesn't know the difference between good and evil... then I believe he has redeemed his place in the heaven. Sometimes ignorance can be a blessing."

Adam raised his eyebrow, Merlino's ideas were very close to being heresy. "You do know that the church does not share all your ideas?"

Merlino smiled. "That is why I have been talking so tacitly that no human would be able to hear me," suddenly his hand reached on me and he cupped my face. "You are cold, you are a vampyr."

"Well... this is interesting," Adam said when he heard Merlino's thoughts. "A catholic monk and a demon hunter."

"A Watcher," Merlino said, "I'm a researcher, not a hunter."

Adam sighed when he smelled his fear, "Don't be afraid. I do have a soul, and I kill only evil men and women. I won't kill you or anyone who doesn't deserve to die." As he took a sip from the wine cup, Merlino created a quite formidable wall around his mind. "You are well trained... may I ask how did you figure out what I am?"

"I didn't, but knowing what I know about vampires and demons... I'm just a paranoid man. And paranoia has kept me alive this far."

Adam leaned on him and took hold of his wooden crucifix. "See? It doesn't burn me, I am not the type of a vampire you are used to."

"So it seems," he admitted.

"You don't have natural magical ability, your mind shield is good, but I could get through it if I want to," Adam said, "frankly, I will do that because you're going to send a report to Watcher's Council and I don't much like the idea of them or any other vampire-hunting organization knowing about me. But for now, I just want to be friends with you."

"Why?"

"I have a tutor who has taught me a lot about humanity, but she was young when she was turned into one of us. She doesn't understand humanity the way you do. There still are many things about humanity I don't understand. I choose you to teach me more about humanity. From now on, I will live with you and emulate you," Adam said. "If you say no, I will not kill you. I will just break into your mind and make you forget that you ever met me."

For a long time, Merlino was drinking wine, staring at Adam before he said, "I'd be glad to be your guide. But I have one condition."

Adam smirked. "You dare to set conditions to a vampire?"

"I believe that you won't mind this; I want to write a book about you."

"That would be okay as long as I can read it first," Adam said.

"You can read it as I write it. I don't care if it will be published or not. Writing just is my way of focus my thoughts on something," Merlino said, "if you devour souls, memories, and minds, you can answer one of the questions that have been in my mind: does the eternal soul carry memories with it after the body is dead?"

"Yes, it does," Adam replied. "Although I don't think them as souls, I think them as essences of men. I take my victim's memories and thought patterns, and the power they have within them, but which they have no use for," he shrugged. "Maybe that power is the soul, maybe it is not, I don't know nor do I care what it is."

Merlino nodded. "We have to talk more about this, we can learn a lot from each other."

"And you don't have anything against my erasing your memory when we're finished?"

"I would prefer if you wouldn't, because what could be more frustrating than finding answers to your questions and then forgetting them? But it would be better than death..., and Watcher's Council already knows about you. They don't know that you are a vampire, but you and small female they call Little Death have been killing vampires for years now, and that caught our attention," Merlino calmly explained. "That is one of the reasons I came to Florence. One of our researchers predicted that the next city where you and Little Death will appear will be Florence. My job is to find out why two of you are so good at killing vampires and why you hunt then. The current theory among watchers is that the Little Death is a second Slayer, and you are her brother."

"She's not a Slayer, and, before I read your mind, I didn't even know what a slayer is. Can I guess that you don't know where current Slayer is, or do you?"

"We do know where she is," Merlino said. "Two Slayers, that is impossible, and that always has been the fault in that theory, but can you blame us not realizing that there are vampires who hunt vampires in the world?"

Adam nodded. "No, I cannot blame you for not realizing that we are vampires. You didn't know that there are vampires with souls."

"Actually, Council has always known about Midians, although we have thought that the Death hunted and killed all of your kind four thousand years ago," Merlino said. "In fact, it is believed that getting rid of your kind was why God let one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse roam free in the world before it was his time to come here."

Adam raised my brow. "You are talking about the Biblical horseman Death?"

"Yes."

"And what kind of a being is he?"

"Just what the name implies. He is the personification of death. Probably a hell god, or at least that's one of the theories," Merlino said. "No one has seen or heard about the Death over two thousand years, it is believed that after he hunted and killed all Midians, he went back to hell to wait for the final Apocalypse."

Adam nodded, that sounded plausible if you believed that the Death existed. "Why are you telling all this to me?"

Merlino leaned back on his chair and smiled nervously. "To show you that I am so valuable that keeping me alive is in your best interests," he sighed. "And I don't understand why the Council wants to kill are doing God's work by killing demons."

"I kill humans too, they are my food."

"True, but if you truly are, as I suspect, a Midian there is nothing Council can do to stop you. Your kind is as close to the immortality as anyone can be. That is why God let Death out from the hell to kill all of you; only the Death himself can kill your kind."

Adam took the wine bottle and got up. "We must take this to a more secure place," he said, "follow me... and don't try to escape, there is no escape from me."

Merlino got up. "Please, don't kill me."

"I give my word that I will not kill you, and I always keep my word. Are you hungry? We could order food before we go back to my place, I don't have any food in there."

Merlino chuckled nervously. "It would have surprised me if you'd have human food... I am fine, I ate just before I came into the tavern."

They had been walking only a few moments when they saw a man harassing a woman, and then the man pulled out a knife. While everyone else was running away, Adam rushed into action. He grabbed the man from the wrist and twisted it behind him. The man smelled alcohol, turpentine, and sweat. As Adam held him, he was shouting some insults at the woman.

"Michelangelo," Merlino said, "are you trying to get arrested?"

That name startled Adam so much that he let the man go. "Michelangelo? The sculptor of David?"

"Indeed," Merlino replied.

"This asshole is the genius who made that magnificent statue?" Adam asked as he again grabbed Michelangelo's wrist when he tried to stab him. He shook his head and looked at the man. "You know, I would have expected a genius to have some manners even when he's drunk and high from the turpentine fumes."

"She's a hooker, and she won't let me fuck her even though I'm willing to pay!" Michelangelo yelled.

"Yes, well, I wouldn't let you fuck me either when you're in that condition," Adam said.

Michelangelo calmed a little and looked at Adam. "But you would if I'd be sober?" He asked, and then he smirked, "Of course you'd fuck me, everyone wants me."

Again Adam was so startled that he let Michelangelo go. Then he shook his head. "Incredible... why does he think that he should get whatever he wants?"

"Because he usually gets what he wants," Merlino said as he helped Michelangelo up from the gutter he had fallen on his ass.

"He's beautiful... a living David," Michelangelo muttered staring at Adam.

"Michelangelo, I'm flattered, but you wouldn't want to fuck me," Adam said.

"Why wouldn't I?" Michelangelo asked. "Do you have ugly scars or something..." His eyes widened. "That would be great! An angelic man with a hideous hidden scar, a God's way to tell people that he was too beautiful... I must draw you," he dropped on his knees and started to draw on the mud with his finger.

Adam glanced at Merlino. "He's quite insane, isn't he?"

"Not usually, no," Merlino said. "I don't really know him, but I hear that he's like this only when he's drunk. Usually, he's is just a bit eccentric. Then again, eccentric is just another word for insanity. It is used when brilliant people are acting insanely."

"Insane rich people are also called eccentric," Adam said, looking at a man at the end of the alley. "You can come and take care of your friend now. Merlino and I have to go."

"Is it safe for me to come?" The man asked. "Michela can be deadly when he has one of his drunken fits."

"I think it is safe; he's drawing in the mud," Adam replied, looking down at the muttering artist. "Correction, he's sculpting bust of me from the shitty mud."

The man took a deep breath and sighed loudly before coming to us. "It is safe then... he's in his own world now," he frowned looking at me, "Michela is right, you are beautiful."

"Thank you, but we really should be going... will you take care of him? And can you make sure that he won't attack anyone?" Adam asked.

"Yes," the man sighed, "I have been taking care of him for years now, and when he gets into the creative mood, he won't see or hear anything else than his work." He leaned down and gathered a pile of more firm mud from the gutter. "Michela... here, take this... let's go home, there you can work with the clay and marble."

Adam watched how the man led the drunken artist out from the alley. Then he turned to look at Merlino. "Insane, genius, but insane."

Merlino snickered. "Most geniuses are slightly insane."

"I suppose..." Adam raised his eyebrow when he realized something, "you're not afraid of me anymore?"

"He tried to kill you, and you only stopped him, and you even did that without hurting him. If you'd be a cold-hearted killer, you would have killed him, or at least hurt him." Merlino said.

Adam became Merlino's apprentice, and he found it to be a liberating experience. Adam felt like he wasn't just a cruel predator. He still went out to hunt, but he fed only when it was absolutely necessary. First months Adam was sure that Merlino would betray him to the Council he worked for, but, to his surprise, Merlino never mentioned him on the letters to the Watcher's Council.

Merlino and Adam became friends, which was something Adam had not expected, after all; he had spent most of his life hunting vampires. Not a field watcher, he was a researcher, but still, he'd been taught to hate vampires since he'd been born.

Adam wondered why Merlino was so willing to teach him, he could have gone through the shield his friend had built around his mind, but Adam didn't want to do that. He wasn't sure why he had started to think that reading Merlino's thoughts was wrong, but that was how he felt, and he didn't even try to read his friend's mind.

His thoughts were his thoughts — at least till I'd have to leave him, then I'd have to erase my existence from his mind.

Two years later, Adam was watching his friend eating his dinner in a tavern. "Why are you teaching me? Why do you like me?" he asked, "you know what I am, you've seen me killing, you've seen my fangs. You've seen the face of the monster I really am, and yet you stay with me."

"I didn't like you at first, but," Merlino said, "two years I've known you... it is hard not to love you. You are not a ruthless killer unless you have to be, you kill only people who deserve it, and you kill more vampires and demons than any Slayer. Not to mention that anyone who believes that all people should have equal rights regardless of their age, skin color, religion, or gender, cannot be evil."

"That's only because to me all humans look the same and you live such short time that you should take all out of the short decades you live," Adam said, "and I have met brilliant women, and it is a shame that human society is wasting their potential."

Merlino smiled. "And that is why I like you; you are more humane than most humans."

"Maybe, but I'm still a predator that hunts and kills humans."

"To feed, most humans kill other humans for fun or profit," Merlino said. "Council thinks that it is a good thing that there is a Midian in the world who is willing to hunt and kill vampires and as long as you keep doing that they will leave you alone."

"They're willing to leave a monster who kills humans alone?" Adam asked.

"It is basic mathematics. You kill six or seven people a week—"

"I don't need to feed every day, most weeks I kill only one human."

Merlino's eyes widened. "Really? Only one in a week?"

"Yes, sometimes I go for a hunt, but then I kill only murderers, rapists, and other thugs."

"...that is baffling news, most vampires need to feed every other day," Merlino said, "but that makes leaving you alone even more sensible. You kill less than a hundred humans in a year, and we estimate that you kill fifty to sixty vampires in a year. Killing them, you save all the humans those vampires would have killed. Since a normal vampire kills every other night, it means that thousands of lives are saved every year. And that number is growing exponentially."

"It cannot be like that," Adam said. "If that'd be true, all humans had to have been dead before I was born."

"True, most vampires die during their first year as the undead monster, and after ten years only one in hundred is still alive," Merlino said, "but the point is that many times more humans are saved by you than you kill for your food. We've always wondered why, except the one incident, you and Little Death don't kill for fun. But now that I know you, I know why you are not killing for fun. It isn't the soul that prevents you from killing, it is because you love humanity. Am I right?"

"Yes, I love humans, and I love trying to figure them out, and I love to watch how they are evolving. Humans are interesting."

"Exactly; as long as you find humans interesting you won't start killing spree, you only kill for the food," Merlino said, "and if you someday start killing humans for fun... then we will kill you and Little Death."

Adam snickered. "That would be fun," he said. "The truth is that I'm not sure if I even can be killed. Every time I feed, not only do I take the blood, but with it, I get their memories, and their strength and power. Helena, the vampire you call Little Death, calls us "soul eaters." Even when I devour other vampires into me, they aren't exactly dead. Their... essences are trapped inside me. Helena says that we are the closest thing of true immortals there is."

"She might be right on that, and we hope that you'll keep doing what you do. It helps us. It helps humanity."

After that talk, Adam spent a year more with Merlino and on the night he was going to leave the monk Watcher Adam was staring at his friend, wondering if he should erase his memories and destroy his notes about himself when a young scholar came into the tavern. The boy seated down on the next table. For a few seconds, Adam watched the boy drinking absinthe. Then Adam got up and smiled at Merlino. "I am leaving now, do not try to find me. You must lead your own life until, perhaps, someday I will return to you.

"Though I probably never will, the time means next to nothing to me and when I will remember you and want to come to meet you... by that time you probably have been dead for some time," Adam leaned on his friend and kissed him on the forehead. "Goodbye, dear Teofilo, I am most happy that you took me as your student, my friend," Adam then smiled to the boy staring at him as he disappeared into the shadows.

The boy jumped up and fell on his ass. "What the hell!"

Merlino sighed. "Just a mirage, my son. You should stop drinking absinthe... it is not good for your mind."

* * *

**Akkerman, Crimean Khanate (Ukraine), 1526**

Knights Templar might have been destroyed in 1307, but they had not been that easy to wipe off. Two centuries after they officially had been destroyed Knights Templar had reinforced to an Order of Saint John, and their Herrenmeister contacted Abraham Anker, the current head of Anker family.

Herrenmeister was a banker, and his guiding principle was to keep a low profile in order not to spook the markets, same as any good trader would do. Unfortunately, Abraham Anker had been a too good businessman, and some of the big players had started to worry about Abraham Anker's growing influence in the currency and loan markets.

Abraham Anker had already talked with the Herrenmeister and, to Abraham's surprise, the Herrenmeister had known about Adam's role as Anker Family's silent partner and wanted to talk with him. Adam traveled to Ukraine and met the Herrenmeister on a church.

"Nice church," Adam said as he sat beside the Herrenmeister. "my men will kill your men if they try to kill me when I walk out from this place." He didn't have any backup team, but Helena had taught him to create living shadows, and the church was surrounded by Herrenmeister's bodyguards and his shadows.

"Of course they will," the man said, "and same goes with your men trying to kill me. We are living hard times, a man can never travel without bodyguards."

"Unfortunately you are right, we are living dangerous times," Adam said. "do you know who am?"

"Adam de Vries is the name you used on your way here, but my spies found out that behind the name is Lord Lupei of the Societas Draconistarum. Although I have a former member of that particular order in my payroll and he cannot remember you. So, I suspect that Lupei is a false name too."

"Adam Lupei is and is not a false name, it is close to the name I was born with, and I can claim to have royal blood flowing in my veins. My grandmother was a bastard daughter of King Sigismund, and by inherited right, I should have had a seat on the Order of the Dragon. So, I decided to claim my rightful place without asking anyone. Isn't that the way new noble families are born?"

All that was a lie, but Adam's claim that he was the grandson of King's bastard daughter would be hard to deny. There were records of King Sigismund recognizing a young woman as his bastard daughter and the young woman's name had not been mentioned in any of the papers.

He burst into laughter. "Yes, that is the way noble families are born," he said, "may I introduce myself; I'm Joachim Schlabrendorff, The Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John and the Chief Officer of The European branch of Wolf, Ram, and Hart."

"Pleased to meet you," Adam said.

"Good to know that you have royal blood in you. It always is easier to deal with blue-blooded people than with commoners," Schlabrendorff said. "we have to form an alliance, one man and one bank gaining such good profits are causing troubles on the market."

"So, what are you suggesting?"

"Same thing I always suggest to new players: let us spread the money, risks, and profit around. We can make more money for you, and we can hide you from officials. You have to pay a small fee, but no one will notice when profits are spread all around the known world. From North to South, West to East," Schlabrendorff said. "I know what you and your sister are. My firm is used to dealing with supernatural beings."

"Which firm would that be?" Adam asked.

"Wolf, Ram, and Hart."

Adam raised his eyebrow. "What did you mean when you said that you are used to dealing with supernatural beings?"

"Immortals, vampires, demons... we don't discriminate, we create an account to anyone willing to pay. We know how to hide your wealth. We handle many things for customers who have a long life expectancy or otherwise might need the proxy to deal with the authorities. We know about your deal with Ankers, and we already have discussed with them," Schlabrendorff said. "We can handle all your dealings that might need contact to banks, officials, or any other legal issues. New identities, buying and selling property, transferring almost anything to almost anywhere, in fact, the deal we made with Anker and Lady Helena actually help us with any issues that involve any kind of money transfers. In future we are using his—or should I say your?—banks whenever we need to transfer funds inside Europe."

"Banks aren't mine, I'm just a silent partner," Adam said, he didn't like that Abraham Anker had agreed to handle demons monies, but he couldn't do anything about that. Schlabrendorff had just told him that Helena had agreed to this deal.

Adam had a short telepathic discussion with Helena, who was close enough for him to connect her. She told him that Wolf, Ram, and Hart were three high ranking demons and their company was ruled by demons. She also told Adam that already had an account in Wolf, Ram, and Hart and that she had agreed that their bank would handle Wolf, Ram, and Hart's money transfers in Europe. Apparently, they would get 2% of every money transfer.

"Very well, I like to open two accounts, one for Lord Adam Lupei and another for Adam de Vries," Adam said.

"Of course, Lord Lupei, that was exactly what I thought you would do," Schlabrendorff said. "and we're honored to have the oldest known Midion as our client."

"I know that it is ruled by higher-ranked demons, so I must demand that you won't write any clause that would make me or my sister lose any of the souls we have," Adam sighed. "Do not try to put anything else into the contract but what Lady Helena agreed. Believe me; you do not want us to get angry at you."

Schlabrendorff nodded. "So I have been warned. Apparently last time one of our branch offices tried to hustle with a True Midian, the branch office in question disappeared from the face of the earth, and so did half of the city it was in. That happened 150 BC, and we still remember it. We learned our lesson, and we will never again try to rip off a True Midian."

Adam got up. "Good to know, I hate it if I have to destroy things just to show that I can... arrange all of the paperwork and send it to my sister in Bologna, she handles all the contracts. I will meet her in Bologna two weeks from now, and I'll sign the contracts if she tells me that it is safe to sign them."

"Of course, Lord Lupei," Schlabrendorff said.

Adam nodded. "I hope that the future will show me that it is nice to do business with you," he said and as he walked out from the church the shadow creatures he had created disappeared. He got into the horse carriage and told his driver to take him to the harbor. He needed to eat, and then he'd hurry back to Bologna to Helena. He had been separated from his sister for seventeen years, and he missed her terribly.

While they had been separated Helena had taken a few other artistic girls under her wings, but Properzia was the one she was most proud of; the girl had overcome many obstacles in her way of becoming an artist. Inside of her Properzia still had the young woman who had been enthralled by the gargoyle, but she now was a respected artist and sculptor.

A week later Adam met Helena in Bologna, and a week from that they were traveling toward Rome. Helena kept telling Adam that going to Rome was a huge mistake, but Adam ignored her, he wanted to see Rome, the Eternal City. Adam, like every vampire and demon in the world, knew that the Vatican had its own demon hunters; The Iscariot, but Rome was a metropolis. Adam was sure that there was no chance for them to meet Iscariot agents.

They had been in Rome less than half a day when they walked by a café, and older priest jumped up and cried, "The Antichrist! That man is the vampire I met during the Battle of Hemmingstedt he told me he is the Antichrist!"

Groaning in annoyance, Adam took a quick glance into the priest's mind. It was Eilert, the boy he had left alive over two decades earlier. He now was a priest working for the Iscariot. Six of the Priests in the café with Eilert drew out flintlock pistols.

Ignoring the pistols aimed at her Helena glared at Adam. "What did I say?"

Adam sighed. "I know, I know, coming to Rome was a stupid idea."

**TBC**

* * *

** In the next chapter, Adam/Xander will get the nickname "The Butcher of Rome," and they will join Vlad Dracul (Alucard) on his war against Ottomans that he decided to continue after he'd been turned into vampire. (I think that it would fit on the real ****Vlad Țepeș's character) ****Adam/Xander will make his second vampire daughter and Helena, her first vampire son. Also, Adam/Xander and Vlad will be eating (devouring) an army of 100 000 men. **

**Fun times ahead...**

* * *

Everything below I've copied from Wikipedia. This is funfiction (Not a typo, I write these for fun and I prononuce fun the way that makes it sound fanfiction when I say it.) so I couldn't be bothered to do any research. Reading what Britannica and Wikipedia says about the people and events i implant into this story is good enough research for a funfiction story.

****Properzia de' Rossi****(c. 1490–1530), was an Italian Renaissance sculptor. She studied under the Bolognese artist and master engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who is best known today for his engravings after paintings by Raphael.

**Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim** (1486–1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer.

**The University of Cologne** (German: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. Established in 1388 it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. I spent a year and a half there without learning anything, but that wasn't the university's fault. When you have a mind of an engineer you shouldn't try to study art history.

**Florence** was a center of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. By some academics it is considered to be the birthplace of the Renaissance.

**Niccolò di Bernardo** **dei Machiavelli** (1469–1527) was an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist, writer, playwright, and poet. He has often been called the father of modern political science.

**Teofilo Folengo **(1491–1544), who wrote under the pseudonym of Merlino Coccajo or Merlinus Cocaius in Latin, was one of the principal Italian macaronic poets.

**Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni** (1475–1564), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. He's best known for 5m tall marble statue of Biblical David and the fresco on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.

**The Order of the Dragon** was a monarchical chivalric order for selected nobility, founded in 1408 by Sigismund von Luxembourg who was King of Hungary. Allegedly, the most notorious member of the order was Vlad Țepeș better known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad III Dracula.

**Sigismund of Luxembourg** (1368–1437) was King of Hungary, Croatia, Germany, Bohemia, Italy, and later Holy Roman Emperor. He was the last male member of the House of Luxembourg.

**Fabian Ludwig Georg Adolf Kurt von Schlabrendorff** (1907-1980), was a German jurist, soldier, and member of the resistance against Adolf Hitler. He has nothing to do with my story's Schlabrendorff, I just like his name and the story of his life. I strongly suggest you to read his great book **The Secret War Against Hitler** (Der Widerstand : Dissent and Resistance in the Third Reich). Schlabrendorff, Fabian von, Hilda Simon. Westview Press, September, 1994. ISBN 0-8133-2190-5


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:**_ Sorry about the long silence, but my past months my life has been an all-consuming shitstorm._

_I know that at the end of the last chapter, I promised all sorts of things, but keeping all my promises this chapter would have been way too long. Which is why I split it into three shorter chapters.  
_

_Now, let's continue the story._

* * *

**Rome, Italy, May 1527**

The six Priests fired their guns at the same time. Adam felt a bullet hitting straight into his head, and he fell on the ground. The shots burned his body like nothing before. He later learned that Section XIII used blessed silver bullets.

As Adam fell on the ground, he saw Helena falling beside him. One of the silver bullets had hit her straight into the heart. Adam watched how his little sister's beautiful red eyes slowly turned gray, as life slowly left her.

He started to panic when he couldn't sense Helena's thoughts anymore.

_She is dead._

_Truly dead._

The monster inside of him was enraged. It bellowed as Adam turned his face toward the sky. "Helena's God, if you are there, I curse thee! I curse Thee, the God of Heaven, and I bless the God of Hell! When the day comes I will fight in Lucifer's side, and I will kill you!"

"The Antichrist!" one of the priests yelled.

Adam's glowing red eyes came to rest upon the priests loading their pistols."You call me the Antichrist?" he said, and then he spread his arms, and lolled his head against the left shoulder, mocking the crucifixion of Jesus. He floated ten feet up before raising his head. "No, I'm not the Antichrist, I am the Beast. I am the Beast of the sea," he said with a cold, toneless voice, smiling at them with a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs.

_"And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: And they worshiped the beast, saying: Who is like unto the beast? Who can make war with him?_" Adam quoted the bible as he landed back down to the Piazza. "No one. Do you hear me? No one can make war with me! I am the Beast of the Sea, and you killed my daughter! You will pay for that. This city will pay for that! Your world will pay for it!"

"We are the Iscariot; we do not fear vampire trash," said one of the priests who stepped over Helena's dead body and yelled, "Fire!"

Adam's muscles quivered, his body shook, his nerves twitched in waves of pain as the blessed silver bullets ripped his body into pieces.

And then the absolute darkness, absolute silence.

Silence.

Then.

Somewhere, far away, someone was screaming.

Howling, screaming, roaring, and crying.

Releasing his anger, rage, and pain.

The sounds rose higher and higher. Adam realized, vaguely, that it was he who was crying and howling. Suddenly the absolute darkness covered him. The people around him were screaming, and guns were fired, but nothing helped. The black mist that only seconds earlier har been Adam started to whirl and expand. Soon the whole Piazza Navona disappeared under the black, cold fog.

As the people were screaming, trying to escape the mist, thousands of blood-red eyes appeared on the mist. The eyes looked at the priests loading their guns. The eyes blinked in unison just before under them appeared thousands of mouths full of fangs.

"You killed my Helena!" The mouths howled in pain. Adam wanted to get his revenge for killing his daughter, his sister, his Helena. Time seemed to slow down as Adam attacked the priests. He devoured their blood, souls, and bodies. But his rage hadn't been fulfilled yet. Killing the priests wasn't enough to satisfy his hunger for revenge.

Adam looked at the people screaming in horror.

They were still alive.

That wasn't right.

Helena was dead.

Everyone in the world should be dead too.

Adam sunk the fangs of all his mouths into the flesh of the humans. All of them at once. He devoured the souls and bodies of all of the people that had been on the Piazza. He then left the piazza behind. As the black mist floated upward, there was nothing but bloodstains on the ground left of the people who had been in the Piazza. They now were part of Adam. He grabbed dozens of people at once, sinking his fangs into them and devouring them.

Adam floated around the Eternal City, howling out his pain as he devoured every living being that the mist that was him touched. Adam devoured men, women, children, dogs, cats, rats, and insects.

Then, all of a sudden, Adam heard Helena's angry and commanding voice inside of his head, _[Adam!]_ she yelled,_ [That's enough! Stop! Now!]_

Adam whimpered, during all the years he'd spent with Helena he had learned that angry Helena never was a good thing. His sister could be a very inventive and cruel woman.

"Sorry," Adam muttered as the mist gathered into his human form, and only then did he realize the significance of Helena's voice in his mind. Adam spun around and laughed when he saw Helena standing there. He went to her and pulled the girl on his embrace. "You're alive!"

"How observant of you," Helena sardonically said. "Please, let me down."

The silver bullet had pierced her heart. She had been dead. She should have stayed dead. Adam frowned, God knows how many silver bullets had pierced his heart and head, yet it had not killed him. The blessed silver bullets barely had slowed him down.

Adam looked at the empty streets behind Helena. He realized that none of the soldiers he'd met on his way to the Vatican had slowed him down. Quite the contrary, more of them he had eaten stronger he had become. Adam looked into Helena's beautiful red eyes. "What are we?" he asked. "Vampires don't survive what we did... vampires don't turn into a cloud of mist that eats everything it touches... what are we?"

"I don't know, and we don't have time to discuss that now. We have to go; more soldiers are coming." Helena said.

"I could kill them all, I had no troubles of killing thousands of humans while you were taking a nap," Adam said.

"Yes, but you've already gotten too much attention. We need to find a safe place for now," Helena said.

Adam listened to all too familiar noise coming around the city. He'd seen and heard enough war fields to know that those were sounds of an army entering into the city. "What the hell is happening?"

"They are going to sack the Pope," Helena said.

Adam nodded, when they had traveled to Rome, they had seen the Imperial army marching toward Rome, but Adam hadn't believed that they actually would attack Rome and Vatican.

"In that case, no one will pay any attention to my rampage. Maybe it will be completely forgotten," Adam said as they got into a building nearby.

Helena shook her head. "You are a lucky man," she said. "We can use this for our favor. If the Habsburg army enters into the Vatican, we can sneak in with them; there has to be a lot of information about the Iscariot in the Vatican archives. A list of all their agents, their informants, maybe even files about us and others of our kind. We should infiltrate to the Imperial army if they'll get in and try to steal as much of Vatican files as possible."

"You're insane," Adam declared, then he sighed. "But you're also right. We need more information about Iscariot. And what would be a better place to find that information than Vatican's archives?"

They didn't have to wait for long for the battle to start. The next day the ransacking, raping, and killing started. Adam had no idea why the Imperial army was in such a hurry, but it worked on their favor. No one noticed two young men (Helena had cut her hairs and dressed as a young boy) who had suddenly appeared among the rest of the army.

For the first time, Adam was part of the battle and not just scavenging dying men's blood on the battlefield. He loved to pretend he was one of them, just a human soldier killing other human soldiers. Adam kept his strength and speed at human levels and tried not to get stabbed or shot.

Adam soon found out that he loved being a part of the war machine.

When Adam and his troops were facing Swiss Guards, Adam was impressed. There weren't many of them, but they fought well, and they didn't give up. Adam said a prayer for their souls when his side massacred the Swiss Guards. When the rest of the mercenaries headed forward, Adam stood there, smelling the blood, guts, gunpowder, cordite, smoke, burning flesh... Adam inhaled the battlefield with an insane grin on his face. During the Sack of Rome, Adam realized that he loved war.

The army who took the Vatican shed no tears over the dead or destruction of such a beautiful place before looting started. Both Helena and Adam had their hands full, trying to keep civilians safe from stealing, murdering, and raping men. Over a day, they kept civilians inside of the Vatican as secure as possible before they found a safe place for them, and then two of them finally had time to get into the Archives while looting of the Vatican continued above them.

They'd been reading the documents over six hours when Helena finally found a vault that had a silver door. On the door, there were carved numerous religious symbols. Not only Christian, but Jewish, Buddhist, Chinese symbols, neither one of them could read, even Islamic symbols. The only reason for Christians to use all those symbols of other faiths was to keep monsters like them out.

"Whatever is behind that door has to be just what we're looking for," Helena said.

Adam touched the door, and the shock he got almost knocked him out. "It is blessed and burns even me. There's no way we can get in," he said.

Helena smirked. "It is a vault covered with protective symbols. Can you imagine what kind of treasures humans will imagine behind that door? They have looted almost every valuable thing inside of the palace and churches... except this... Wait here," she said and left to convince mercenaries that there was a vault that there has to be something valuable in the vault.

Not to mention that the colossal silver door itself was worthy of a fortune. Fifteen minutes later, there was a small group of men trying to get into the vault. It took them two hours to open the vault door, and after which, they stole every item inside of it, leaving only the documents behind. They also took the silver door with them as they left the place.

But the vault was still out of their reach; it was protected by a holy barrier. Neither Adam or Helena could get in. Adam went back up and compelled two men to carry every paper, every papyrus, every file out from the vault.

Adam and Helena packed as much as they could into sacks, carried them out of the city, and came back eight times before they had gotten every document out. Then they gathered papers all around the Vatican and threw them into the vault and set it on fire to hide the fact that they'd stolen Vatican Section Thirteen's files.

They got out of Rome just before the new army entered the city. They traveled back to Rotterdam, and after a very heated argument with Abraham Anker. Even though Anker was 38 years old, he had kept himself as a virgin in a vain hope that Helena would turn him, which she declined. They placed every document into their bank's vault. On the way to Rotterdam, Helena had read every document, and she had an eidetic memory. All of it was stored in her mind, but they needed the documents in case they'd someday have to blackmail the Catholic Church, and now they had more than enough material to do that.

Helena found a witch to seal the vault so that humans couldn't get in, and to open it, you had to use their blood. After erasing witch's mind, Helena renegotiated the deal with Abraham Anker. From now on, they'd get only 25% of the revenue while Anker's would get the rest of it. Helena did it to compensate for the fact that she had not given immortality to Abraham.

"Here," Helena said and placed a parchment on the table.

"What is it?" Adam asked.

"You want to go to war, don't you?" Helena asked, and Adam nodded, he had gotten a taste of war and wanted more. "Well, that's the solution for you becoming a soldier. I found a blood spell from the Iscariot's archives that can bind our powers."

"Why would I want to do that?" Adam asked.

Helena sighed. "It is a spell that can bind us to someone's blood and bloodline. Originally it was used to bind fledgling to his or her master even after he or she becomes True Nosferatu. If we do this to each other, our powers can be reduced about twice as strong as a human," she smiled. "And, since I am your daughter in blood and your blood already flows in my veins... if I am right, if we simultaneously drink from each other long enough, it will make our blood similar enough for the spell to think we're one and same vampire. There is a chance that after we've done the spell to each other, we can decide when to release our seals ourselves. If we do this, we can fight in human wars without the fear of showing too much strength."

"And if you're wrong, you can give me permission to release the seals and vice versa," Adam said.

"Yes," Helena said.

"Then it sounds good," Adam said. "Drinking my blood again also will make you stronger."

"There is that too," Helena said.

***=0=***

* * *

**Europe, 1527 - 1554**

For a few decades, they fought as soldiers in the human wars. Then, 1554, while they were riding in rural Tuscany, Adam suddenly felt the presence of powerful vampires. There was at least half of dozen of them, none as powerful as they were, but neither of them wanted to face that many vampires. They turned around to avoid the vampires.

But a day later, they sensed a vampire riding toward their campsite. The vampire was immensely powerful, almost as powerful as Adam.

"The Butcher of Rome and Little Death," the vampire said as he jumped down from his horse. "It is nice to meet you finally."

Adam arched an eyebrow. "Who are you, and what do you want from us?"

"He is Vlad Dracula III," Helena said. "So it is true, you are one of us."

The vampire looked at her. "Do I know you?"

"No, but I saw you when I was a kid. My people think you as our savior," Helena said, "You are Vlad the Impaler, the man who kept Turks out of Wallachia. But you also saved my people from your army. My tribe will always be in debt to you."

"Aaah, Little Death is a gypsy," the vampire said.

"Yes," Helena said. "Don't let the hair color fool you. I'm Helena of the Kalderash."

"So, Vlad, what do you want from us?" Adam asked.

Vlad sat down on a tree trunk. "I have come to ask if you two would join my army," he smirked again. "You have made some name among our kind. Vampires who attacked the Vatican itself... Such a beautiful carnage you caused in Rome... they say that it was an empty city after you were finished."

"Not nearly, and we didn't attack Vatican Section XIII, they attacked us," Adam said. "What can you offer? Why would we join your army? Whom are you fighting?"

"War is what I am offering. War in which you don't have to hide what you are," Vlad looked at the carriage. "There's a snack in there, and I'm a bit peckish, care to share him with me?"

Adam went to the carriage and dropped the man in there on the ground in front of Vlad. Adam and Helena often compelled evil men to work as their servants; that way, they always had a meal on foot with them. "Help yourself," Adam said.

Vlad, the Impaler, lifted the man on his lap and drank. He drank as if he'd been starving for some time. Then he licked his lips and tossed the man's body away. "Thank you; I needed that. It has been too long since I have had a decent meal," he said and

"You're welcome," Adam said as he grabbed the body from the wrist and phased into the earth.

"I have never thought about doing that!" The Impaler said. "It is a good way to hide the bodies, and that would be a painful way to die... I heard how the earth crushed his bones when you left him there."

"You haven't lived in a city where you have to hide bodies; the earth crushes their heads too, no ghoul, no corpse, no fuss," Adam replied, ignoring his comment about how painful way to die it would be to phase a living human underground.

"I have lived in cities, but I have never had any reason to hide the bodies. I just rip off their heads and leave them," Vlad said.

"Which is stupid," Helena said, "Section Thirteen uses bodies drained from blood to track us down. It is best to hide our kills unless you want to fight the whole Vatican."

Vlad burst into laughter. "Oh, what a glorious battle it would be! But, you are right, I'm not yet ready to fight Vatican demon hunters," he said. "I am fighting a secret war with Ottomans. I will fight till the Turks are all dead or have been pushed out from Europe. Suleiman has sent an army of 18 000 men to kill me while humans are having their little battle in Marciano Della Chiana. I have only 8000 men, and only eleven of us are vampires. I need more our kind on my side," he smirked. "And Suleiman's army knows how to kill our kind. So, in this war, your death is a real possibility."

The idea of being in real danger of losing his life in a war tickled Adam's nerves, made him anxious to join Vlad's army. Adam loved being part of the war machine. Adam wanted to say yes. He looked at Helena. "Helena, what do you say?"

"We'll join your army, but I have two conditions," Helena said. "First, you promise that you will never try to kill us if we don't attack you. Two, you let us be a part of the planning strategy. If I'm going to be part of your army, I want to see your strategy."

Vlad frowned and looked at Adam. "Is she a good strategist?"

"Helena has a brilliant mind; she's a practical and cunning woman. She can master whatever she wants to."

"I agree to your conditions, Helena of Kalderash," Vlad said. "On the condition that as a General of my army, I have the last word, and you will not confront me publicly."

"You have my word," Helena replied.

"I guess that you just recruited us," Adam said.

**TBC**

***=0=***

* * *

** The Sack of Rome** on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out in Rome, then part of the Papal States, by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

**Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor** (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon) from 1516, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506. His reign encompassed both the long-lasting Spanish and short-lived German colonization of the Americas. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labeled "the empire on which the sun never sets".

**The Battle of Marciano** (also known as the Battle of Scannagallo) occurred in the countryside of Marciano della Chiana, near Arezzo, Tuscany, on August 2, 1554, during the Italian War of 1551. The battle marked the defeat of the Republic of Siena in its war against the Duchy of Florence, and resulted in Siena losing its independence and being absorbed into the Duchy of Florence.


End file.
